


River Gorge

by Icebreather



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, Some Fluff, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-01-31 11:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18590551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icebreather/pseuds/Icebreather
Summary: More than three years after Miranda, Jayne and River are friends and partners. Their platonic relationship changes with the advent of a small child into their lives.





	1. An Imperfect Metaphor

River was in a near-embrace, folded in on both sides by strength and a quiet power. But the walls of the narrow canyon didn’t actually touch, of course, and there were other people here, too, so it wasn’t a monogamous relationship. Standing looking at the granite rising around her, and the barren peaks nearby that disappeared into angry grey cloud-cover, River was reminded of something. But that sensation only flirted around the corners of her mind and she couldn’t quite grasp what it was.

 

It was just another rough tough rim world, or would have been if there were enough people on it to make it that way. As it was, with fewer than 700 sapient denizens, ‘wild’ was a better description. Wild in a inhuman way River was unaccustomed to; terraforming had happened here, but only slightly, just enough to make an area under 1,000 square km barely livable. Foremost features were a few small salt oceans and, on land, impossibly tall steep mountains. A visitor knew on sight that those who lived here did so because they had no other choice. Since Serenity had landed, Mal had had four separate requests that he find room and work for one more crewperson, all of which he had firmly turned down.

 

It wasn’t that they couldn’t have used one more hand. But it had been three years since Miranda, and Mal hadn’t even interviewed anyone for a permanent position. Everyone now counted as crew; they had stepped up, adjusted, undertaken new roles. Things had been working out all right, and River knew Mal didn’t want a stranger running around his boat. Truthfully, besides the passengers they sometimes took on, no one else did either. If they needed an extra hand on a job, or expertise not available among their crew, they hired on a temporary basis only. They were comfortable.

 

Sometimes here lately, River had caught the thought from her own head, maybe a bit too comfortable.

 

The river – the real river, for she knew the difference easily now - that had carved this small gorge had been reduced by the settlers to a wide shallow stream that meandered the gorge floor, chuckling lowly to itself. River could only suppose it was happy not to be a river anymore. Or perhaps it was just smug, knowing it had made the canyon what it was, and that now it could rest. The people had dammed the river up, a few miles away at the ravine’s mouth. She wondered if its change had been as painful a procedure as her own had been. Rivers were not meant to be dammed up, after all, despite others who tried to divert their courses or use their power for their own ends.  

 

River had asked to go see the dam while the crew was dirt side, but Mal had refused, saying they didn’t have time for her to ride there and back.

 

“It’s not much to see anyway, sweet,” the kind woman who’d packaged up their supply order had tried to comfort her, having observed her disappointment. “Just old concrete and water-works, in need of some repair.”   She’d shaken her head and gone on to talk about the weather. It seemed there had been large quantities of rain at higher altitudes over the past week, and a storm had blown up nearer by this morning.

 

Rain and weather were both things that in recent years she’d had little close acquaintance with. River acquiesced calmly to Mal’s refusal, and maybe that was why the captain said yes once they’d loaded the pack horses and she asked to cross the street, and the rocky stream-strewn rift floor, to view the monument the settlers had placed there. Or it could have been Jayne’s, “Aw, let ‘er go, Mal. One of us might as well get some sight-seein’ in.”

 

“All right, guess we can handle the rest of the unloadin’,” Mal allowed, meaning himself, Jayne, and Kaylee, “But an hour after we get back we’ll be unloaded, and you’d better be back too ‘cus we’re going then. I want to get off this world before that weather hits.”  Distant thunder underscored his words. Mal gave her a timepiece, but not a comm, because they’d discovered the signal didn’t reach within the canyon walls. 

 

“Thank-you, Captain,” River beamed at him, and Mal gave her his small smile as he ordered the others to head out. Serenity was perched on one of the few level patches of ground they had found in these mountains that was large enough for the purpose. It was up out of the gorge near the small moon’s only off-world cortex link. 

 

They’d been far out on the rim for a long time, and were running low on fuel and supplies, when they caught the automatic broadcasting signal saying there was such to be had here, if in limited amounts. River had wondered aloud why the few people who were here had chosen to live right in the canyon, instead of along its upper edge. Jayne had answered her. There wasn’t enough level ground, elsewhere, for a settlement, no matter how small it was or how they terraced the gardens. River saw that her partner was right, as he usually was about such things. The mountains rose steeply, straight up for kilometers in some areas. But down here, the river had turned the ground’s angles softer.

 

A strong breeze was kicking up, bringing an invigorating earthy scent. As she crossed the small footbridge provided a few meters upstream of the store, River remembered how interested Jayne had been when he saw the mountainous terrain they’d landed in. And how he whined to go out and do a little ‘climbing’, to keep his skills up – though the ‘climbing’ would have been straight rappelling, for the most part. River had gotten the sense that Jayne missed walking uphill and eating without a roof. 

 

That was what that niggling elusive remembrance had been, River realized with a little shock of surprise. This wilderness reminded her of Jayne, the man who had become her cohort in violent persuasion. She tried to sort the similarities while she mounted the monument’s bottom steps. They ticked off in her head, one by one; power. Ruthlessness (a word that amused her, for Ruth was an old Earth-that-Was name for a woman. Apparently it meant something to be without her. And since she, herself, had no personal acquaintance with any Ruth, did that mean she too was ruthless? Either way, at times Jayne was). He also had an untamedness, and a steady arrogance, and what seemed an ageless solidity.

 

Jayne was a man mountain, rocky and harsh, unforgiving and weathered, immune to everything but time’s erosion. Solid as rock, and as deeply gouged.

 

 The bare jagged landscape suddenly attracted her in a new, odd way. River had felt a bit sorry for Jayne, when Mal had refused to linger on ‘this ball of dirt’ any longer than the time needed to stock up. Not that there actually was much dirt, River had felt compelled to point out; it was mostly rock. Not much was growing, especially at this altitude. There was only sharp, coldly forbidding stone and a bit of cold flowing water to soften it.

 

Jayne had pouted, like always, but he’d also kept his focus on business, like always. He was always, River had found, able to concentrate on his job. Today that only seemed to consist of making sure his gun was in evidence, and doing what River thought of as putting on his hard face when Mal started bargaining for goods.  However, once or twice she knew Jayne had stolen glances through the windows of the few small shops they patronized. River slowed on a few of the steps she was climbing, as she recalled watching his face, the unproclaimed want there. It caught at her heart somehow. The second time he had turned abruptly away from the window and they caught each other. He dropped his gaze, before darting another look back to her.

 

The wanting of the wild was still there. River was still staring. His brows beetled and he didn’t look away again.

 

Time slowed, a beat, then picked back up when Mal dropped two sacks at River’s feet. The moment shredded and River jerked, a little. Then she bent, lifted them, swiveled and walked out to the mule knowing Jayne was still watching, following her movements. She could feel it. 

 

Slightly winded now from the thinness of the air, and something … else … River paused in her climbing to nod to herself and look down behind her. Aside from the few buildings clustered here and the trickle of water, the mountain canyon was quite empty, she realized. If Jayne was kin to it . . . maybe that explained that shuttered longing she’d seen behind his eyes. Her own eyes fell again to the rocky gorge floor. Maybe if they had not dammed the river. 

 

Feeling her thoughts beginning to tangle in a way that long hard experience had taught her she couldn’t handle, River turned back to her climbing. The sky had grown very dark and it sounded as if the storm was approaching. She might be well-off hurrying.

 

This was a tall edifice compared to the buildings below, and far sturdier, built somewhat like a small ziggurat from Earth-that-was, two sequential sets of stairs with a landing between, and an outsized stone woman perched at the top. The base she stood upon and her own shape looked to have been formed from one giant piece of mountain rock. She held a gun in her hands, chest-level, and its raised tip was nearly even with the lip of the old river channel. She reminded River of Zoë, with her long tied-back hair, her calm stance, proud face and readied weaponry.

 

More than half-way up now, River paused to push her wind-blown hair from her face and read a bronzed plaque fixed above the landing. The depicted woman was a war hero from the planet these people had fled. River smiled as she ran her fingers over the insignia of an Independent planetary army. The woman had commanded a small group of soldiers who fended off an Alliance advance squadron long enough for their family members to lift off-planet and head here.  River’s smile faded; the plaque said it was assumed by these survivors that the defenders had all perished. That was always the way, the way of the ‘verse as the captain would say. 

 

“Lady.” The voice was high-pitched but not unpleasant. River started momentarily, but of course the warrior hadn’t spoken to her. She turned but didn’t meet anyone’s face, because the person who talked was much shorter than she was. She had to direct her gaze downward before it landed on a small girl who stood with her hand outstretched, about to tug on River’s dress. The hand dropped when the child saw she had attention.

 

River paused, uncertain what to do in this situation. Since being one herself, she had not been around any young children. She could not recall learning proper adult-child interactions, and acting on what she recalled of her parents’ example didn’t seem appropriate. But she could feel that it didn’t seem right to address the child from such a height disparity. So River bent her knees and crouched in front of the smaller person, which brought their heads approximately level. This must have been acceptable, for the girl seemed entirely comfortable with the arrangement. She was possessed of skin far darker than Zoë’s, and a short corona of hair that fluffed out around her head in a kinky black halo. River smiled.

 

“Hello, tiny angel.”

 

The little girl blinked. She wrinkled her nose for a moment, and then apparently decided to disregard that. “I’m Darwhen. My mama sent me with a message,” she announced importantly. She glanced behind her at all the steps her short legs had climbed, as if to say River should take note of the fact that she had been sent not only across the street but up this high to deliver it. River nodded in acknowledgement of the important responsibility. This must be the daughter of the keeper of the shop they had been in. River rifled through the growth and development information stored in her mind and decided Darwhen must be five or six years old.

 

“Your ship called on our cortex, cuz the comms don’t work down here.” The girl closed her eyes and scrunched her nose up in a way that made River want to laugh. She refrained, however, fearful of denting so prodigious a dignity. The air felt oddly still as she waited. In a monotone voice that sounded as though it had been much-recited on the climb up, Darwhen continued, “There are flash flood warnings on the broadcast, and your captain wants to leave now. He says, ‘get your pigu* back to the boat.’”

 

 Having safely delivered her memorized message, Darwhen opened her eyes again with an expression of relief.  She had a semi-captive, audience, though, so she added, “I know what a flash flood is. Mama says we’re leaving the canyon soon as I get back.”

 

Her audience, though, wasn’t listening to her any more. River had half-turned away, head tilted, frown lines between her delicate brows. With a shrug, Darwhen swiveled around to head back down the stairs. But she never got down the first one; River gasped, then grasped her up, pulled her tight to her chest, and began to run the other direction; up. 

 

Up, her heart pounding urgently, higher up the steps, as a distant rumbling sound filtered through the oddly still air. Drops of rain were beginning to fall but River disregarded them, as well as the cries of the child who struggled, frightened, in her arms. Darwhen wasn’t large for her age, and River had been working hard to keep all of her muscles well conditioned, so she was able to grapple with her and hold on.

 

“We need to get high,” she tried to explain as she ran as fast as she ever had, locking down the flailing arms and kicking legs as best she could. “High, the river has broken her bounds, we are not safe.”

 

The rumbling was no longer distant. River pushed herself and garnered a bit more speed. They were almost there, almost – she reached the highest step as the ground trembled below and a wall of seething grey surged around the slight curve of the upstream canyon. Darwhen gasped and suddenly the limbs that had fought River clutched at her. Her own arms were now free, and she used them; standing on the highest stair, she tucked both her upper limbs around the larger-than-life statue, twisting to wedge the little girl as deeply between those stone legs as possible. With her ears now deafened by the water’s roar, fear twisting through her veins, she moved feverishly; wrapped both arms and legs around one stone limb and one living child, trying to protect the small head with her hands, and bent her own head in as a living torrent of water overtook them. 

 

It struck her back, slammed her up against the warrior woman – Zoë, protect us, she thought fuzzily – and tried to rip her away, tumble her from her anchor. Her head slammed into the stone. She clung as fiercely as she could, eyes closed as the water surged over their heads. Darwhen’s small arms had been wrenched from her neck and only River’s body-clench and their stone guardian kept them from being torn apart from each other. River clung, the breath pounded out of her by force, and lost sense of time and space and everything except that she had to keep hold of what she clung to. She prayed a prayer she’d prayed before: “Please God make me a stone . . .”

 

 

______________________

*pigu -- butt


	2. A Precarious Situation

The pounding stopped, almost as abruptly as it had begun.  River waited, though, coughing and spitting out fluid, feeling water surging at first and then more slowly lapping past her.  Occasionally something solid glanced off her trembling back.  It was a bit of time before she lifted eyelids that felt glued closed.  It was longer than that before she saw anything real.  For a time there she knew she’d regressed, back to a period when only nothingness could block out the pain and everything else that beat at her. This time remission came much quicker, though, as she became aware of herself and what she touched. Her head pulsed with hurt, but the rest of her seemed quite numb.  That was maybe good, maybe not. 

 

The canyon was drowned.  The water level dropped off some as the minutes passed, from waist-high down to clear a few of the steps she’d climbed.  But there it stayed, flowing past, filling the small canyon wall-to-wall, the river back in its place.  When it didn’t appear to be planning to surge again, River dropped her exhausted arms and unwrapped legs that trembled with fatigue.  Bits of things she couldn’t identify floated past; some man-made, some natural.  River realized that if they hadn’t been so high up, she’d never have been able to hold on against the onslaught that had ripped through here.

 

It slowly dawned on River that the little girl, Darwhen, wasn’t making a sound. Wasn’t moving.  Fear choking her throat, she pulled the small form toward her while twisting around to sit sideways on the narrow stair, her feet in the water at first.  Then she propped her left one up out of the wet as the current buffeted shards of pain up it.  She checked frantically the way Simon would, for breaths from Darwhen; they were there. Somewhat relieved, she began looking and found a large bloody bump near the base of Darwhen’s skull.  Her panic ebbing, she was able to sense the energy of life still with the little girl. She pried open the closed eyelids and observed that the pupils contracted evenly.  Feeling better, she turned her attention elsewhere; the right arm was very obviously broken, probably from how it had been flung away from River’s neck. Bruises were everywhere, from being battered against the same statue that had kept them safe.  River knew she was probably covered in them, too, and her own head’s aching was intensifying.  It was also starting to hurt to breathe, as what she supposed had been shock began to wear off.  And her ankle – cradling Darwhen carefully across her lap, she reached down to probe at it.  Smarting pain answered her.  It was very swollen, and wouldn’t cooperate when she tried to make it rotate.

 

A new fear was starting to rise through her weariness.  She was a good swimmer, but with an ankle and a few ribs that were probably fractured, towing an unconscious child, through the rapid current that parted around them? She was unsure. 

 

Darwhen stirred.  Heart gladdening for a moment, River looked down as her eyelids flickered open. Pure puzzlement registered on the small face for a moment, and then fear as the water surrounding them was taken in. 

 

“Mama!” she cried, struggling to sit up. River held her tightly and supported her back.  She had no idea what to say.  So she just leaned back and tried to catch her breath around stabs of pain while Darwhen looked around. River braced for screaming, for fright or anger, but this little human was made of sterner stuff.  She stared at the statue whose base they huddled against, regarded the scraggly trees hugging the edges of the watercourse that had been her canyon home, and River could see her mentally sorting the facts. 

 

“Mama,” she said again, in a whimper this time.  Her large black eyes sheened with water to match that which flowed past them. Rain was coming down, River realized belatedly.  It seemed absurdly superfluous to the situation.

 

“I am sorry,” River murmured to her, knowing how absolutely useless the words were, “there was no time to warn them.  We barely had time to get above the water level.  They . . . would have had no time at all. The river covered them.”

 

Did one talk thus to a child?  River remembered false stories told by nannies and nurses, of fat white-haired gift-giving men, of magic and fairies and bright futures with handsome young gentlemen. They had all been lies, and had not served River-the-child well.  Of what use would lies be to this child, here and now?  None.

 

Staving off a person’s imminent fall for a later, harder one was no favor at all. River knew.

 

Honesty was always best, even when it hurt.

 

Darwhen’s face was glazed, not entirely comprehending, as she stared out over the changed landscape.  “Mama is under the water,” she said slowly.  River nodded.  The movement brought Darwhen’s visual focus to her.  “We can go get her?” she asked, but River heard the doubt in her voice.  In awkward imitation of things she’d seen Inara do, River bent her head over Darwhen’s and stroked her sodden hair with one hand.

 

“No,” she said, trying to make her voice soft, “the river smashed everything when it came, and people cannot live underneath water for this long.  Your mother is dead.”   She didn’t know how else to say it. 

 

“I know what a flash flood is,” Darwhen answered, and River remembered her saying that same thing in a rather more aggressive tone a few moments, a few lifetimes before.  Her mental walls weren’t entirely intact, right at the moment, and she could sense conflicting emotions in the little girl – were all children so open? – confusion, anger, and a lot of fear.  But none of these found expression in the little angular face, only a vague lostness.  Perhaps they would appear later, River mused, when there had been time to untangle all those jumbled feelings.

 

She knew from experience how long a process that could be.

 

Very carefully, River reached out a hand to blockade them against a piece of wood drifting toward them.  It was apparently from an upstream building; she could make out Chinese characters as she deflected it away.  Darwhen seemed to recognize it; her brows furrowed as she twisted to watch its progress, then cried out with the hurt that movement caused her right arm.  She hadn’t seemed to notice it until that moment, just as River hadn’t immediately felt her own aches, but now she regarded her arm as though it frightened her. 

 

“You must be careful not to move it,” River told her, wishing she’d grabbed that wood to use as a splint.  Next piece, she told herself.  Darwhen nodded, and then, with an adult-sized sigh, collapsed her head unto River’s shoulder and closed her eyes.  A soft chest-centered warmth with which River was unfamiliar warred against the hurt her ribs were causing her.  In defiance of that ache, she wrapped her arms securely around the ragged but living bundle she held.  She had to decide what they were going to do, and do it. They could not remain here.

 

But at that moment a beloved sound reached her.  Hearing it from outside, through a planet’s atmosphere, made it differ in pitch and timber than when she was inside and receiving the noise through the hull.   But she still recognized it and jerked her head around.  She regretted the movement instantly as the resulting pain lanced from one end of her skull to the other, and her vision went to a swirling purple.  She closed her eyes and sat very still, and when she opened them it was to Darwhen poking at her arm.

 

“Lady, you OK?  I think someone’s here to help us . . .”

 

“Yes,” River managed a smile down at her, though her muscles were tense with agony, “this is someone to help us. And my name is River.”  She tilted her head back carefully, not increasing the headache by too much, to gaze with fuzzy vision up at an endearingly familiar sight; Jayne, in Serenity’s open hatch.  He was anchored to a rope and lowering their flight harness. Their kite, Wash used to call it.

 

Mal’s voice was coming out over Serenity’s exterior speaker. He was directing her, but River needed no prompting, and it seemed that Darwhen didn’t either.  Using her left arm to cradle her right, she stood, wincing but not crying out.  She looked to River expectantly, and River managed another smile.  It was a smile mostly about the child’s bravery.

“I do not believe I can stand, right now,” River told her, and when the small dark brows furrowed in concern she hastily added, “You go first, and I will come up right after you.  These are my family. They will take good care of us.”

 

“You’ll come right away?”  There was only a hint, but it was there, of a quaver in the bottom lip.  River watched in admiration as Darwhen firmed it away.  There was fierceness in the expression trained on her, and River wondered if it had been Darwhen’s mother who taught her to control herself so.  Surely most children would have been more hysterical. It had taken River herself the past three years to gain her current mastery over open emotional expression.

 

“I will come,” River promised. “And we will cry after.”  That was a promise, too, and she saw that Darwhen realized it in the little nod she gave.  Fighting pain-induced nausea, River towed in the rope that had been lowered far enough for her to reach it.  Above them, over Serenity’s engines, she could hear Jayne yelling at someone that “she’s got someone with her, and don’t neither one look too good.”  She grabbed the harness as it reached them and helped Darwhen climb into it, pulling the adjustable straps until it cradled the girl’s body securely. Above them, Jayne gave an experimental pull, and River loosened her grip as she saw Darwhen was securely held. 

 

“Hold your arm closely and tightly,” she advised, seeing the tears now tracking the small face from the pain of having that right arm moved.  “It will hurt.  But my brother is a doctor, and when you get to the ship he will take the pain away.”

 

Jayne pulled, and Darwhen cried out as she left River’s arms, whether in fear or pain River didn’t know.  She wanted to collapse down and surrender to the dark lapping at her mind, but she watched until Jayne caught the girl and untied her and handed her off to someone River couldn’t see.  Then it was her turn.  She got the harness around herself, her chest protesting every movement, and tried to relax back against the stone stairs until Jayne was ready.  She saw that the swelling was continuing to advance up her leg, then turned her eyes away and up to Jayne, avenging angel turned guardian. When she was pulled into the air by the pressure Jayne exerted on the harness’s cord, the clamor of anguish from nerves in her leg, chest and head combined to bring all the contents of her stomach up in one horrendous heave.  And then she passed out.

 

___________________

 

Jayne experienced a paroxysm of fear as he saw River spew and then go completely limp.  She’s fine, he told himself, putting more muscle into it to get her up faster, if more roughly.  Simon, behind him, had checked over the little girl and sent her off to the infirmary with orders that her arm not be jarred or bent.  Zoë had carried her.  As beaten up as the child had been, Simon judged none of the injuries critical and waited to triage his next patient.  Jayne was glad no one could see his own face as he caught full sight of River’s. It was a mass of bruising, from her left hair line to jaw, and swollen in more than one place. She was still out cold.

 

He pulled her up and unto the deck plating with Kaylee reaching out to ease her way just as she had with the first rescuee.  Jayne beat Simon to the straps around River’s torso, wincing again when she moaned at the movement but didn’t come to.  Simon crouched beside her, muttering about how they should have devised a raft or something instead of hauling on them with the harness.  He was running his hands swiftly over River’s skull and peering beneath her eyelids.  Jayne had always wondered what that told a body, but now didn’t seem the time to ask.  He just waited for the doctor’s OK, then slid his arms beneath her knees and her shoulders, cradled her head in the crook of his elbow so it wouldn’t snap back when he lifted her, and stood.  Simon led the way to his work station.

 

Zoë had the little girl on the counter (having assumed that the apparently more badly injured River would claim the room’s only cart), undressed and propped and covered with a sheet, but the very moment Simon was in the room she left with out a word.  She must have spoken with Mal, because a few moments later the ship settled down, probably right back where they’d landed when they first arrived. After seeing the flood waters they’d come up the canyon from down stream, and already knew there were probably no other survivors to search for from the little town. But they had an extra, non-paying passenger, so couldn’t break atmo till they found a place for her.

 

Jayne pushed aside the thought of that entire village drowned and focused on River, laying her down on the bed-cart with an unaccustomed softness.  Simon was moving about precisely and in his intentness didn’t seem to notice Jayne’s failure to exit.  So Jayne stayed, backed up against the little girl’s counter-turned-bed and watched, until Simon began undoing buttons.  The doctor stopped to look pointedly in the mercenary’s direction.

 

“Right,” Jayne grunted, shoving away from the cabinet he leaned on.  But he only turned his back.  Now facing the little girl, he frowned down at her.    Her right arm was obviously broken.  There were bruises scattered about her face, too.  And . . . she was looking at him.

 

“Doc,” he said, turning back around, “River gonna die anytime soon?”

 

“What?” Simon asked distractedly.  He’d pulled a sheet over River’s form after ascertaining the extent of her injuries.  He was pulling open a medication bin.

 

“This one’s awake,” Jayne hiked his thumb over his shoulder, “and hurtin’.”

 

Simon’s brows rose, but he closed the drawer he was in and opened another. Extracting a vial, needle, and syringe, he walked to his smallest patient to give her his best, if little-used, pediatrics smile. 

 

Jayne heard him talking to the kid as he himself took the chance to look River over.  She had more bruises than just those on her face, from the looks of what skin was outside the sheet, and even through that covering he could see that her left leg was swollen up big.  She was breathing steady, though.  He just didn’t like to see her so still and limp, it bothered him.

 

He was bothered that he was bothered, too.  But since Mal had started teaming him and River up on jobs, the time either one of them spent in the infirmary had decreased by a lot.  They watched each others’ backs and kept each other out of trouble. If they did need Simon’s tending, it was usually for something fairly minor. 

 

They may have seemed an unlikely pair, but this they had in common; the job, and their attitude toward it.  This is how you face down violent people and make them do what you want.  And this is how you do it well.  It’s the job, and the pleasure is not so much in doing it as in doing it well.

 

They were both experts at their jobs, and together they were phenomenal – he thought the word with no hyperbole at all.  It was just truth. So he couldn’t remember worryin’ over River this much in a good while.  But he did occasionally, in situations like this; he didn’t want to lose her.  River made the word ‘partner’ mean things it never had before.

 

None of which meant that he wanted everyone else to be party to what he was feelin’. He swung towards the door, beyond which he could see Kaylee and Inara huddled on the couch.  Inara was giving him some kinda look he couldn’t understand, soft and compassionate.  He avoided her gaze.  Kaylee just looked worried, but he suddenly wanted out of there before either of them started tryin’ to make him feel better.

 

‘Course, certain ways of makin’ him feel better wouldn’t go amiss …

 

“Jayne,” Simon stopped him before he reached the door, “I could use some help, since you’re here.”

 

“I’ll go get Inara,” Jayne assured him quickly, making another stride toward . . . well, he didn’t know where, but someplace not so open.

 

Not that he had any reason to hide. Some things just weren’t anyone else’s business.

 

But Inara had risen and was gone down the corridor toward the bridge before he could get to her.  Jayne gauged Kaylee a moment, then shrugged and turned back. Simon took his unspoken agreement.

 

“I may have to open and go in later, after a bone scan, and it’ll certainly have to be casted.  But for now we’ll just splint this arm.  You’ve done that before?”

 

“Course, to myself more’n once.”

 

“So I assumed.”  Simon dug out a splint, a long length of soft gauze, tape, and a sling.  It was better than what Jayne usually had to work with out in the field. The doc had given the kid a pain shot, he saw, probably a strong one; the lines between her brows had cleared and her eyes were drooping.  Then they closed, and he was glad not to have to explain what he was doing.  She stirred a little as he set the splint against her arm and began to wrap it, but that was all.

 

“She said her name is Darwhen,” Simon told him from where he was working over River. 

 

“Yeah,” Jayne responded without turning, “her ma ran the goods store we was in. ‘spect she’s dead now.” 

 

There was quiet in the infirmary after that, except for the sound of Simon going about his job.


	3. The Discomfort of Sentiment

 

Jayne left when he felt he could without inciting comment, and had every intention of staying to the cargo hold or the galley or someplace where he could do some good. But it didn’t quite work out that way.  He’d find a task in some part of the ship that would somehow end up, just coincidentally, necessitating a trip past the common room.  If anyone was there he went on by without a peek.  If it was empty, he’d find himself half through the door, angling for a glance into the infirmary. Checking.  Then, disgusted with himself, he’d hurry on with what he’d been doing.  Only to find himself back in the exact same spot a half hour later.

 

On Jayne’s second pass of the common room, Simon was wrapping up his endeavours. He nodded reassuringly toward Jayne, who apparently wasn’t as subtle as he liked to think. Also apparent, though, was the fact that River and the kid would both be fine.  The concern Jayne felt eased.  In four years, he’d learned the doc mostly got medical assessments right on the nose.

 

But he still couldn’t stay away. On his third pass, the room’s only occupants were River and the kid.  On the fourth, he caught the movement of River’s arm just as he leaned his head around the corner.

 

 River had regained consciousness in the infirmary just as she had expected to, though she did not immediately see Simon as she had thought she would.  There was a nasty taste in the back of her mouth, and a familiar numbness to her thoughts.  Yes, the effects of Simon’s drugs, with which he had battled her pain; physical, not psychological this time.  She turned her head experimentally, looking for a small child, and discovered that he had been victorious; it didn’t hurt as much to move. A smile touched her lips when she saw the slight form occupying the counter space across from her, with temporary bolsters to prevent falling.  She wondered if the girl’s awakening vertigo would be anything like what she herself had experienced her first few hours out of her box on Serenity. Darwhen was asleep; River assumed from the same types of drugs she herself had been given.  She let her eyes linger on the girl, dwelling on her future.  It seemed certain that her only parent was gone.

 

River was cautiously using a hand to explore her numbed ribcage when she caught movement from the corner of her eye.  Jayne was lingering in the common room, rather calculatedly not looking toward the infirmary.  River read the intent to deceive in him but knew it wasn’t aimed at her.  He knew better than that, by now. She let herself stare, recalling the sight of him gazing down from above her, casting out the harness to pull her up. That memory kicked off another, in the domino effect her neurons seemed unable to unlearn.  But she was so much better now at wrestling her slashed synapses into submission, and at getting a rein on a thought and holding it still for inspection. So she was able to latch unto and hold the remembrance of that other rescue, Jayne hovering angel-like in midair and aiming his gun to defend her.

 

Though he couldn’t know it, that recollection was the reason for the insubstantial smile Jayne observed when he let his gaze swing back in through the infirmary door.  She called his name.

 

The soft sound pulled him into the room, an effect her voice always had on him. He caught a glimpse of a casted foot peeking out from beneath the sheet as he entered. It looked even more wrong on her than it would on anyone else. Bare feet – that was River.  Ballet shoes and combat boots. Both of those were River, too. ‘Weak’ and ‘dependent’ hadn’t been River in a long time. Still damaged, yes; she prob’ly always would be, he reasoned.  But like Simon said, it was with scar tissue present, instead of open breaks or cracks.

 

She’d sneaked up on him when he wasn’t looking.  It was just a partner thing. He didn’t believe in falling into great crushing emotions, ‘cuz he’d seen what that did to people.  No, definitely just a partner thing; this weren’t anything like what he’d went through with a certain young woman named Lorre, on that cargo hauler when he was just out of his teens.  River had haunted no dreams, consumed no thoughts, filled no loins with instant turgid desires (a phrase he’d gotten out of one of li’l Kaylee’s love stories) … at least, not his.

 

 Instead, there’d been these creeping increments of change.  After Miranda she became not so dangerous to him or to this crew.  Then she was flyin’ the ship, and could be trusted to do it.  Then she was protective – he could trust Kaylee’s and Inara’s welfare to her.  She got cute, quirky and interesting, calmed down out of most of her anxieties and learnin’ to handle herself.  She’d developed into a woman, an admirable fighter whose abilities still stunned him sometimes.  She became smiles at the breakfast table and a comrade at his back and odd soft sideways moments that glanced out of eye corners and brushed against bodies in the corridor.

 

Whoa, turn the ignition off on where that was going.  It seemed to go there a lot lately, in his head.  He’d have to give that some thought, later. But he didn’t need it now, this close to River the Reader. Jayne checked quickly to see that the kid he’d hauled aboard was still out; she was. Leaning one hip against her counter, he faced the head of River’s cart and didn’t bother trying not to be obvious about studying her pale face.

 

*****

 

River had always thought of Jayne as dark, but seeing him now with dusky-skinned Darwhen as a backdrop, she realized his skin had little tan.  He wasn’t exactly pale, but somehow he seemed the kind of man who should have lines around his eyes from squinting under a planet’s sun.  She found herself wondering what he was doing on a spaceship out in the black, where UV rays never graced skin. 

 

He was just looking at her, not talking. Well, he never had been a stellar conversationalist. River felt herself smile at him.  His stance loosened.

 

“Hurt much?” he asked.

 

“Don’t know,” she returned.  “I’ve tried little movement, as of yet. I have a concussion, but I’ll mend.”

 

He nodded.  There was silence again, but it was one of easy comradeship.  Jayne cast about the infirmary as though he might find something to say in amongst Simon’s equipment and accoutrements.  The quiet lengthened.  River observed the man with slightly groggy interest.

 

Behind him, Darwhen stirred. Jayne swung his hips away from the counter and moved in River’s direction, but when the girl quieted again so did he. 

 

“Has Simon said how she is?” River asked him. Jayne nodded.

 

“She’ll do.  Got a concussion too; and a broken arm, see he casted it, but he says with the bone mender she can have that off in a coupla days.  You, too, for that matter.” He indicated the lumpy shape of her casted ankle under the sheet.

 

“It will be good.”  River’s gaze slid to Darwhen, again.  “What will become of her?” She asked, and didn’t stop to wonder why she was posing that question to Jayne, instead of waiting for Mal or Inara.

 

Jayne shook his head.  “Don’t rightly know. There aren’t many other settlements on this benighted world, that we’ve been able to tell.  We’ll look a bit, but prob’ly have to take her elsewhere, find someplace for her, an’ who knows how long that’ll take.” His eyes were narrow as he studied the small form on the counter.  He changed the subject.

 

 “Dam busted, you know. From all that rain they’d had.”

 

She nodded; it had been what she supposed.

 

“How did you know it was comin’?”

 

River knew what he meant, but now she felt some discomfort. 

 

“What do you mean?” It was a new thing for her, these attempts at subterfuge.  Over three years since Miranda, and she still couldn’t quite manage deliberate deception.  She was working hard at it, though, studying everyone around her and how they did it.  She’d thought she was getting better at it, but Jayne always could see through her; he jutted his jaw out and sneered at her attempt.

 

“You know what I’m talking about.  The flood, after the dam broke.  You knew it was coming before it got to you.”

 

“How do you figure I knew?”

 

“You knew.  Got up high as you could, held to something sturdy.”

 

“It’s a common need of mine.” River spoke again without thinking.  It must be the drugs; she’d become unused to chemicals running her system. Jayne threw puzzlement at her with his eyes.  River shrugged her shoulders, and found that the movement stirred a dull ache in her ribs.

 

“I’ve often wondered if it’s why I’m still here.”

 

“Here?”

 

“On this ship.”

 

Jayne shook his head. “I’m not followin’.”

 

“There is much here that is sturdy. Ship and family.” Jayne. She didn’t say it aloud, but she knew he read something in her glance. His brain might have entertained that impression for a bit, but then it seemed that he shoved it away. Jayne was good at ignoring what he didn’t want to understand.  And tenacious about going after what he did want.

 

“You even got the kid tucked in where she might not get swept away.  How’d you know?” he asked again.

 

River thought for the space of a breath, remembered for another.

 

“There was the river, coming.  I could hear it, before I could hear it.  Felt the ground responding, from those miles away.” She frowned in frustration, knowing she wasn’t giving clear answers.  But Jayne was nodding.

 

“Thought so. Seems a bit beyond psychic, being able to tell actions of things what aren’t generally considered thinkin’, sentient beings.”

 

River allowed the smile that wanted out. “Cognition, sentience … both are fairly murky concepts.”

 

Jayne shrugged.  The years they’d all been together, everyone had gotten accustomed to River’s speech patterns.  Of course, she’d worked at adapting them, too, so that the basic sense of what she said didn’t lurk so far beneath the surface. Everyone, including Jayne, could follow her meaning pretty well.

 

For her part, River could remember being surprised, in the beginning, at some of the words that came out of Jayne’s mouth.Pretentious. She’d worried around that one, awhile, before she figured out his knowing of it.  It was an insult, and Jayne did like his insults.  What better way to insult the type of person the word described than by usurping their place, figuratively, by using a word that itself could be rather supercilious? She felt that Jayne liked the symmetry of that. Symmetry being another word he knew, as it described almost any gun viewed barrel-on and  
vertically.  She delighted that being around her added to his vocabulary.  She could sense that he rather liked it, too. There were occasional moments when she knew he threw out the odd three- or four-syllable word to pull the other person up short, to catch them off guard.

    

And Jayne wasn’t the only one whose vocabulary had expanded.  River had been learning new words ever since she’d been able to sort out whose thoughts were whose. Before, in fact; the first curse words Simon and Mal ever heard her spout, as she threw things about the infirmary, were taken verbatim from Jayne’s mind – she recognized the flavor of them later.  Mal and Zoë, for all their soldiering, didn’t have the depth of expression Jayne did. And she had come to respect his restraint; most of his cussing and vulgarity never actually made it out of his mouth.  He had a lot more of it in his head than anyone ever actually heard, and wouldn’t Simon be appalled at that?  Although River felt her brother should be as impressed at the merc’s restraint as she was.  After awhile, the blue language could become a bit repetitious, but when Jayne was really motivated (to confusion, frustration, or anger, in ascending order) he could be quite original. She would eagerly lap up the resulting phraseology. For awhile she had purposed to motivate him, and did so frequently and well.  Her education had expanded by leaps and bounds.

 

It had been a long time since she’d egged him on to glory that way.  She sighed.

 

“You all right?” He was immediately beside her, arms braced on the cart, leaning in. She looked up at his strong, frowning face and another memory leaked over her. More than three years ago, he’d leaned in just that way when she collapsed on the floor of the bank they’d been robbing. He’d come across the room to get to her. He’d held her.  He’d never once doubted her statement about Reavers coming. 

 

That had all been before he had reason to trust her, reason to not want her off the boat.  Later she knew he’d been proclaiming, again, that she and Simon were a danger to the crew and should be forced off. But one of those first few times she’d consciously made a recall effort, reached into her mind and tried to make it obey her, that had been the memory she’d pulled out. 

 

A reason not to hate Jayne.  A reason not to make him fear her.  And, eventually, a reason not to fight the soul-comfort his presence brought her. Since Miranda, he’d been there, that same way.  A partner at her back to be depended on, at her side to be leaned on the few times she’d needed it.  She’d reciprocated – it was what partners did.  Over the course of three years they’d become entwined that way, subtly and without fuss.

 

Simon was her brother, and always would be, a blessing of birth that she would always treasure.  But this, with Jayne, was something different, and quietly special in its own right.  She didn’t want it to change.


	4. An Imprecise Measurement

Simon let River and Darwhen out of the infirmary in the morning, having fixed them both to the best of his ability. Darwhen was ensconced on the couch in the common room and advised not to move her arm too abruptly, and to keep it in the sling. Perhaps she’d some experience with doctors, River mused; the little girl seemed to take readily to Simon giving her directions. 

 

When Mal tried it, though, the story was different. Small elegant brows drew together and nostrils flared.

 

“You,” the captain was informed in a you-stupid-you tone, “are not my Papa.”

 

Mal’s own brows elevated towards his hairline.  “Real observant one, we got here. No, I ain’t your Papa,” he returned, eyes stern, “But I am the Captain on this boat, and until such time as we find you a Papa, you’ll do as I say, when I say it.  Just as any other crew or passenger would. Now what were those rules I gave you, again?”

Darwhen rolled her eyes.  “No throwin’ about or breakin’ of things.  No runnin’ about an’ dyin’ and leavin’ a mess to be cleaned up by someone not you. No listenin’ in on conversations what don’t concern me.” She was glaring even as she gave a fair imitation of the accent the orders had been delivered in. Mal tipped his chin at her, and decided to let that ride.  Girl’d lost her mother yesterday, after all.

 

River was quiet in a corner as she observed this exchange.  As long as she was there, Darwhen seemed all right.  But the one time she’d made to exit the room for her bunk, the girl had become agitated.  She ran across to grab her pants leg and held it.  Just that, no more – no tears or clinging limbs.  But the hand shook a bit.  River had caught up in the doorway to look down at her, then over at her Captain, in confusion. Mal lifted one shoulder at her.

 

“You brought her on,” he said, “might as well take her with you.  See she follows those rules. Find something to keep her occupied.  It looks like we’re to have the keeping of her for awhile, here.  Until we figure somethin’ out.”

 

River tilted her head, her hair hanging to the side in one long wavy curtain. Darwhen stared at it until River spoke.

 

“Zoë would be a more appropriate custodian.”

 

Darwhen had little interest in Zoë, who she hadn’t met, but she did glare at that captain when he snorted.

 

“Don’t know that she’d agree with you on that.”

 

“It would be temporary wish fulfillment. Why would she dislike that?”

 

“Just let it be for now, albatross.”

 

Darwhen was coming to see that the lady, River, wasn’t the same as other people. She spoke different, walked different, looked at you different.  It wasn’t in a bad way, but sometimes Darwhen had trouble understanding what she meant.  That wasn’t a problem she usually had with grown-ups.

 

 Darwhen stayed with River that day. She wasn’t too sure she liked it here, on this ship.  It was loud inside when the engine was running.  She didn’t know any of the people, and there wasn’t even one other kid.  But River smiled pretty, and even though she didn’t talk much she listened careful when Darwhen talked, so that helped.  And being with her made Darwhen feel safe. 

 

Those were the reasons why she was with her late in the day when River found one of the other ladies, outside the ship. It wasn’t ‘cuz of that Captain Mal’s order.  If Darwhen wanted to just leave this ship and these people, she’d go right ahead and do it. She could just walk out the door; they had set back down by the transmitter beacon, back on high ground, while debating whether to scour the few other villages the planet boasted for long-lost relatives, or to try a different world altogether.

 

“Zoë”, River had said, standing behind the other woman in the slanting sunshine that was so bright it seemed hard to believe the storm and flood had ever come, “This is Darwhen.” 

 

Darwhen had put on her best face, because it seemed evident that River wanted her to meet this person, though she hadn’t quite figured out why.

 

The other woman, Zoë, turned.  She had a very quiet face.

 

River was frowning.  Darwhen could feel that something was wrong, but not what it was.  She wrapped her fist tighter into the material of the pant leg she held. I’m not afraid, she told herself.

 

“Zoë – I was wrong?” River spoke soft, but she was upset.  Darwhen could tell, and didn’t like it. “I thought maybe, you would like to … but you’re angry.  This would not be your wish fulfillment.  How was I wrong?”

 

Zoë’s eyes got a look that was kinda scary. So, all right, Darwhen was a little afraid. Just a little.

 

“How could this possibly fulfill any of my wishes?”  Zoë didn’t have a very nice voice. Her lips were very straight and she made Darwhen feel cold.

 

“You always wanted … you and Wash … I thought this could be a small chance to mother …”  River’s voice was a whisper only.  “I was wrong.”

 

Zoë walked forward now.  She was shaking her head, slow but it looked mean somehow.

 

“You were.  I wanted Wash’s child, River. No one else’s.  Certainly not a substitute for a week or so.”  Her voce was even more not-nice and River frowned more. Darwhen narrowed her eyes at the Zoë woman, just to show her she wasn’t really scared, not at all. When she made River feel bad, Darwhen was angry. And only a very little bit scared.

 

Then that captain was outside with them.

 

He saw Zoë’s face, and River and Darwhen standing there, and he got mad.  Right away.  Then he yelled.  Darwhen tucked a little closer in to River’s side.  Zoë talked real sharp at Mal, saying she didn’t need him to defend her. All of these angry people wore guns.

 

Darwhen hid her head in River’s pants leg. But then River’s voice got louder, too, and that was the scariest thing.  So Darwhen let go, and backed away.  None of them noticed.

 

Darwhen ran away from the angry voices, all the way up the ramp and into the big room with the crates in it, where she walked backwards from the entrance to make sure no one had followed her.  She was ashamed of herself for not staying to help River, but she couldn’t go back.  She kept moving until she ran into something, then stopped. 

 

She wasn’t accustomed to people speaking to each other that way.  Mama yelled, sometimes, but it had never sounded the way the soldier-woman’s quiet voice had when she said ‘no’ to taking care of Darwhen.  She had never seen a man make a woman glare the way that Mal did River, either.  That kind of yelling was another thing, on top of all the others, that she didn’t like about this place. And she wanted her mother, very badly. Maybe she should just leave. ‘cept she wasn’t to sure where to go . . .

 

Jayne had been re-stacking crates, more for something to do than because it really needed doing.  He was turning to place one into its new stack when something ran into him.  The thing was about thigh-tall, moving, and emitting body heat.  He paused, crate in his arms.  Unless Mal had picked up some living cargo without informing him, only one thing on this ship met that description.  He carefully settled the crate he held before glancing down.

 

“Kid?” he grunted.

 

Darwhen jerked her head back as though surprised to hear a human voice.  She’d been staring off towards where Mal, River, and Zoë had been engaged in some argument or other.  It was quiet that way now, though.  Instead of moving away, the kid wrapped the fingers of her good hand into the cloth of his pants. The other hand was still in a cast, though the doc promised it could come off soon.  So would the one on River’s leg.

 

“Kid,” Jayne said, feeling he was being mighty patient, “I’m workin’.  It’s not good manners to be interruptin’ a man’s work.” 

 

Darwhen let go of him, and he moved to pick up another crate.  She had turned to face him.

 

“You made Doctor Simon take my pain away.”  She said it with absolute certainty.  Jayne stared at her, trying to remember what would have made her think that. Oh, yeah, he’d called the doc when he saw she was awake, back in the infirmary.

 

“I’m Darwhen,” the kid was saying expectantly.  He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

 

“Jayne,” he returned shortly.  “Move.”

 

“I have good manners,” she said, inching to her right and apparently referring to his earlier comment about interrupting. It seemed odd, hearin’ a kid’s voice on the ship.  It just was odd, havin’ a kid on the ship at all.  Jayne didn’t have much experience with kids, besides having been one.  The most recent time had been years ago, his last visit home.  His cousin Jyri had had a boy about ten years old, he remembered.  He tried to recall how his family had acted when the kid was around but couldn’t bring up anything. The boy hadn’t made much of an impression, besides the annoyance he inspired.

 

“My mama says I have good manners when I wanna have ‘em,” Darwhen was persisting.  He frowned in perplexity as he shifted another crate.  Why was she in here, bugging him?  Why didn’t she just go away?

 

“My mama is dead,” she said next.  That pulled him up short.  He’d just been thinking of his family, and an image of his own ma popped up in his head.  She’d sent a capture of herself last year, and the number of lines on her face and amount of grey in her hair had shocked him.  His best remembrances of her were from when he was still a teen, not long before he left home.  She’d been dark-haired and vibrant.  He’d been yanked to a mental halt, looking at that capture, realizing that someday she might be the one leaving him instead of the other way around.

 

“I’m sorry your ma’s dead,” he said gruffly to the kid.  He wasn’t sure how he’d feel if his ma passed before he did, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.  He’d been writing her even more regular, ever since that day with the capture. 

 

Darwhen seemed to have caught the rough empathy in the big man before her, and took a chance to talk and be heard that most of the crew had not granted her.  They’d yelled and whispered. They had talked over and around and about her, but except for a few sentences from River, not to her with anything but annoyance or that little-kid-speak that she hated.  This man was talking to her, just like she was a normal person. So she asked him what she’d needed to ask all day.

 

“Where is my ma?”

 

Jayne put his current crate back down where he’d gotten it, and looked closely at the kid for the first time.  Her clothing fit her worse than what they’d found for River when she first showed up.  It was just a white t-shirt, whose he didn’t know, and it covered the girl from neck to ankles. Her feet were bare except for socks that probably reached her knees, ‘cus where were they gonna find shoes that little?  He didn’t even want to know what they’d done for underwear.  Poor kid. His unaccustomed pity was the reason his voice didn’t bark when he repeated himself.

 

“You just said it, kid. Your ma is dead.” Must be the girl was a little dense.

 

Darwhen nodded.  “I know.  But where is she?”

 

Oh, damn. Jayne groaned and shook his head.  “Your ma ever talk ‘bout dyin’ with ya?”

 

Darwhen paused in thought.  “Mr. Tan died.  Mama said he went to Heaven.”

 

Right. Heaven.  Relieved, Jayne nodded.

 

“So did your ma,” he said.

 

“Is Heaven in the ground?” Her little voice was uncertain.  Clearly she didn’t feel this was likely to be the case.

 

Jayne sighed.  He was getting a crick in his neck from looking down at her, so he dropped down and sat on the floor while trying to think of something to say.  He was also trying to think why he was trying to think of something to say, instead of just telling the kid to shut up and leave him alone.  But he wasn’t bored, anymore.  And all this talk of mothers had fixed his own ma’s face firmly in his head, and he knew she wouldn’t want anyone to treat her little boy like that, if he were in the fix this kid was in.

 

He was in his own fix right now though, actually.  After a moment, Darwhen had walked quietly over to where he rested back against the crates.  She stood at his side and leaned on his up-bent leg.  He looked at her in puzzlement.  No little kid had ever been motivated to approach him before, not even his own cousin’s.  All he could remember about children was how he’d been treated as a kid; what he’d hated, mostly.  That had been hair-rufflin’, cheek-pinchin’, and bein’ talked down at. Still all things he hated, come to think of it.

 

Jayne set his mind to trying to remember the church services his ma had dragged him to, where he’d paid little to no attention to what was taught.

 

“See, there’s, uh, two parts to a person. One’s your body.  Ya know what that is.” He paused.  Darwhen nodded.  He rushed on.  “The other’s your soul. Ya know what that is.”  He paused again, but with less positive results.  Darwhen was shaking her head.  Jayne wished for Shepherd Book.

 

“Well, ya can see your body.  It moves and does stuff and feels and suchlike. But the other part, your soul, ya can’t see.”

 

“What does it do?”

 

“Uh . . .” he came up completely blank.  “It … feels things too.” He had a sudden flash of inspiration.  “But not like the body. Your body feels this,” he poked her good shoulder with his finger. “Your soul feels different things.”

 

“Like what?”

 

He couldn’t believe she was still interested.  Him at that age, he’d a been bored to death and fixing to torment the boring adult in some unseemly way.  But then, she thought he was helping her figure out where her mother was.

 

“Like how ya feel when ya think about your ma.” He watched her face.  She stared back.

 

“Ya thinkin’ ‘bout her?”

 

Darwhen nodded.

 

“Ya feelin’ somethin’?”

 

Darwhen nodded again.  He thought he saw a lip quiver and rushed on.

 

“That’s your soul, feelin’ that.”

 

“What else does it feel?”  She had fought the battle with her lip and won.  He patted her arm awkwardly, thinking she deserved a reward for not crying in front of him. Then he was sorry for doing it, because she sniffled a little, and turned herself around and plopped down in his lap.

 

He jumped in startlement, then froze.  He had never, once, held a kid aside from pulling this one into the ship yesterday. He had no idea what to do besides shove her off him.  But he intuited that if he did that she might lose that battle with herself and cry, which was about the last thing he wanted.  He could just walk out and leave her squallin’, but Mal’d probably fuss, and River was sure to. So he sat still, hands at his sides, while Darwhen stared at him expectantly and quietly and just as though big mean weapons-laden mercenaries held her every day of the week. 

 

“What else?” she demanded again, impatiently, when all he did was stare at her.  Right, if he wrapped this up, she’d get up and he’d be out of here.  What was the question again? He was starting to feel like he was back in school. Oh, yeah.

 

“Your soul, it feels, mmm . . . the energy in the ‘verse ....” a glance down at her face didn’t reveal any great comprehension, but he was gettin’ there. “And when the body part dies, the soul part doesn’t, and it goes to heaven,” he finished triumphantly.  He tensed his leg muscles in preparation for rising.  But Darwhen didn’t budge. 

 

“Is it good in heaven?”

 

“Yep, heaven’s great.”  Get off me.

 

“Part of my mama is in heaven, and part of her is under the water.”  Darwhen mulled it over slowly.

 

“Right.” Anytime now.

 

“If we look under the water, I can have part of my mama back?”  There was a fragile hope that he couldn’t have labeled, but did recognize, in her voice, though her eyes were staring off across the deck plating.

 

“Well, no,” he said, distracted from his desire to be rid of her.  The conversation was kind of interesting, after all. Reminded him of times with Shepherd Book. “The part of your mama that made her laugh, and cry, and sing, and yell at ya, and love ya, is gone for now.  That ole body can’t do or be anything if the soul ain’t with it.”  There, he thought he’d explained that pretty well.  The Shepherd would’ve been proud.

 

“I want to see my mama.”  Ai ya*, there were signs of rebellion in her voice, now. Jayne glimpsed her mulish face and began to panic.

 

“Some day you’ll go to heaven, too,” he hurriedly asserted.  “You’ll see her then. But not right now, cuz she wants you to stay here and . . . and be . . . happy.” Sounds good. But Darwhen was shaking her head.

 

“Mr. Tan told me only good girls go to heaven.”

 

Jayne had to smirk.  “You sayin’ you ain’t been good?”

 

Darwhen’s eyes were wide and serious as she turned her face to him.  “Mama told me lots of times I was naughty. I can’t go to heaven and see her, can I?”  And now the mutinous look was gone, and there were tears in its place, though she was struggling against them.  Damn, again! Jayne was getting exhausted trying to keep up with the changing emotional currents.  Why was he doing this?

 

Oh, yeah.  Mothers.

 

“Well,” he said slowly while frantically searching through half-memories of talks with Shepherd Book, “that’s not what I’ve been told, and I was told it by a right good preacher man.  He’d know better than your Mr. Tan. You’ll believe it if a preacher said it, won’t ya?” 

 

The kid was no Mal.  She nodded solemnly. Then she leaned her side against his chest and cuddled her head in under his chin.  He frowned down at her fuzzy black hair.  Kid was makin’ awful free with his lap and his chest, usin’ him for a chair.  He wondered if her ma, or his, would’ve put her arms around her. Prob’ly. He felt awkward, and for sure he weren’t her ma, but he managed one arm, tucked across her back and over the injured arm and around her waist.  When he did she let out a sigh that shuddered and did things inside his chest that he didn’t want to think about.

 

“Way I understand it from this preacher is, ain’t anyone not been bad some time in their life.  So we’re all bad.” He glanced down to see if she was listening; if he was going to do all this thinking work she was going to hear the whole thing.  “But some of us get into Heaven anyway.  That’s cuz we gotta equal things out, karma-wise, by gettin’ forgiven.”

 

That didn’t seem like quite the way the preacher had put it, but it was the best he could come up with. And Buddha help him if she didn’t know what forgiveness was, no way was he going to be able to explain that.  He’d send her to Inara, who could explain the enlightenment part way better than him, or to River, who’d studied Book’s Bible after he’d up and died on them.

 

River! He moaned mentally.  Why hadn’t he thought of her to start with? 

 

He glanced across the bay and it was as if he’d conjured her.  His partner was standing in the shadow of the cargo bay door.  He watched her approach on crutches and lugging that cast.

 

She was staring at him with a look of fascination.  He had to admit – but only to himself, of course – that it was good to see her up off that cart. Her bruises still stood out, as did Darwhen’s, but anything was better than her just laying there like she’d done. 

 

“What ya starin’ at?” he asked, and it didn’t come out in the usual rough growl but in the softer voice he’d unconsciously been using with the kid.  River shook her head slowly, uncertainly.

 

“I am staring at Jayne Cobb, I believe, but I may need that impression corroborated. You are discussing theology – however muddled -- with a five-year-old?”

 

“No.”  Jayne snorted, and regained his growly edge in a hurry. Muddled theology, hah! “Just settin’ her straight that we ain’t goin’ back and drag that canyon lookin’ for her ma’s body.” 

 

“And you were so mean in this ‘settin’ straight’ that she, in fear, lost consciousness and fell across your lap,” River smirked,  “and you were just about to push her out the airlock for being so inconvenient.”  She nodded knowingly.

 

 Startled, Jayne glanced away from glaring at River to the kid curled into his chest. Sure enough, she was sleeping.  He looked up at River again.  She raised her brows and tilted her head like the smart-ass she was. He grunted in disgust, awkwardly readjusted the slight form he held, and rose to his feet.

 

“Tell me where she’s sleepin’ and I’ll get her out of the way,” he said, daring her with his narrowed eyes to comment on the disparity between his actions and his words.  River nodded and turned to lead him; he followed, with the kid, who didn’t hardly weigh nothin’ at all.  Her head nodded against his shoulder. It was nice to have her not talkin’ at him.


	5. Relations & Realizations

River debated, because no bunk had actually been assigned to Darwhen yet.  It was late enough that she could probably sleep most of the night through.  But two of the other bunks slept couples, now. Inara’s old shuttle still held all her old work-related and delicate items, as well as some general storage – and no bed. The passenger dorm was empty, but it seemed certain to River that the traumatized little girl shouldn’t be put in a strange new space alone. Jayne’s bunk seemed out of the question. Zoë had already refused. 

 

That left only River’s bunk, and that was where she led Jayne. She had to open the hatch one-handed, drop her crutches down, and then hop down the ladder on one foot, but she made it.  Jayne, following her, had it easier; he just slung Darwhen over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, leaving his hands free till he reached the bottom. The child stirred and mumbled incoherently and then settled again. He crowded close behind River to get around her in the small area; she absorbed the feel of him there, in her space, breathing him in.

 

She pulled back the blanket on her thin mattress and watched with absorption as Jayne laid his burden down.  She had never seen him like this.  He was too awkward to be gentle, she couldn’t call it that, but he was careful, even straightening legs and adjusting the broken arm so it lay correctly against the sling.  He must have done a passable job, because Darwhen slept throughout the process. Jayne straightened away and River brought the covers back up, tucking them in around small shoulders. For a moment they stood side by side, saying nothing.  There was something in the silence that was new, and fragile, and River didn’t know how to handle it.  So she broke it.

 

“I have no practical experience, but I believe children of this age generally take a small rest period in the afternoon hours. She slept long this morning because of the drugs.  But tomorrow maybe we – I – should institute a naptime?”

 

Jayne squinted his lower eyelids in a way that wrinkled the skin over his nose. River stared at the lines it made and felt how he dominated the room, taking up more than just space and air.

 

“Don’t know ‘bout that,” he contradicted her, stepping around her to the exit, “my cousin’s kid never took a nap when I was home last.  Was runnin’ and screamin’ the whole day long.  Like to made me as moony as you are.”

 

River pursed her lips. “Incorrect simile, Jayne.  I am no longer so crazy, or as unbalanced as I was.  I am capable of rational choices and decisions and of making a meaningful contribution to this family.”

 

“This family?  You talkin’ ‘bout the crew?”

 

River nodded impatiently.

 

“Well, all right.  Crazy as ya used to be, then.  Happy now?”

 

“Contented.” She grinned at him under the diffuse bunk lighting, feeling sharp and soft at the same time.

 

“Great. Since we’re all shiny, I’ll be leavin’ now.  Moonbrain.”  Laughing, Jayne suited action to word before she could gainsay his label.  He left, leaving her to breath in the absence of him.  It left the room hollow.

 

River thought back over the conversation she’d eavesdropped on in the cargo bay. Although some would judge his explanations theologically inaccurate, she found them a credible attempt to help a child in pain, no matter his ridiculous endeavour to convince River that his motives were otherwise.  And he actually believed what he’d said to Darwhen, which differentiated him from the caretakers of her childhood who told her things they knew to be untrue, about Saint Klaus, or all the eligible males who would one day fall in love with her.  There was still such resentment in her, when she thought about those past caretakers who had done nothing to prepare her for what would actually come.  And the economically successful parents who failed at what should have been their most vital job.

 

Jayne was nothing like any of those falsified, posturing people.  He was genuine and had much more substance than flash.  Her past had been full of ready-made pastry-people, sugar and cardboard.  Jayne was whole grain bread, a little gritty but nutrient-rich.

 

It was no difficulty knowing which she preferred.

 

________

Late the next day, Darwhen was with Kaylee in the engine room, being shown what was safe to touch and what was not. Simon’s wife had taken to the girl the minute she’d met her, and started in cooing and smiling and other things that brought a disgusted expression to Darwhen’s face.

 

There had been nightmares of water and brokenness and lostness the night before as Serenity sat on her home planet, and Darwhen awakened screaming.  River, sleeping on the floor of her bunk, had had the nightmares right along with her and woke at the same time.  Having them at one remove allowed her to become oriented more quickly than the little girl. So she’d tried to hold her and sooth her. It took awhile, but she’d gone back to sleep in the middle of a half-remembered, half-spontaneous story about a princess and an ugly duck who was the princess’s brother in disguise.

 

Darwhen had been River’s shadow all that day.  About mid-morning things had finally gotten the better of her and she’d run to River’s bunk, pressed into a corner, and began to sob for her mother.  River followed, hesitant at first, but Darwhen didn’t object to her approach and they ended up curled around each other crying.  Mal was aware and let them be. Some things could only be helped by tears.

 

Darwhen fell asleep with tear tracks on her cheeks, and River called Jayne to come and carry her up out of her bunk. She had him place her on the common room couch so that she wouldn’t wake up alone.  She wasn’t sure if it was human intuition or Reading that told her the aloneness wouldn’t be a good thing, but whatever it was she trusted it. Jayne and River sat quietly discussing the merits of different oil viscosities and doing part of a scheduled gear check while Darwhen slept.  River’s mind was running on more than one track, though, and Jayne could tell.  Her eyes kept straying to the waif on the couch.

 

“She wouldn’t talk,” River said suddenly, not startling him because he knew that whatever was bothering her would come out eventually.  “She was just a fountain of tears.  Humans need to talk, explain, exchange.  How can she have comfort if she won’t communicate? She’s little, for a human, but … a human’s a human, no matter how small.”

 

Jayne smirked, recognizing the skewed quote from an ancient kid’s book his mother used to read him, one he’d dug up on the cortex a time that River had been lamenting her lack of childhood. 

 

“There’s small comfort to be had from strangers,” he said to her now.  “Might be you remember that.  Give her time to get to know us, before expectin’ her to open up wide an’ let everybody see her secrets.”

 

At one point it wouldn’t have occurred to River that Jayne would understand about secrets, he being such a seemingly open person with his thoughts. Now she just nodded and catalogued the wisdom under ‘Jayne’s Truths’.  It was a surprisingly large file.

 

Later, only the curious mysteries of the engine room were enough to steal Darwhen from River’s side.  River found herself oddly restless, alone in her bunk. She couldn’t identify the reason, at first, until she turned to show the drawing she’d just finished to Darwhen and realized the little girl wasn’t there.  She frowned sightlessly at the space where she should have been.  Then she left the drawing lying on the bed while she padded out into the corridor.

 

Her feet followed an inclination she didn’t want to inspect too closely, one based on the time of day.  Some people were quite predictable in their routines, although his were confined to the premises of Serenity.  Dirtside, she’d heard him say more than once, routine could get you killed.

 

He was there, as she’d known he would be, lifting himself up and down in a mind-free exertion of the type he liked.  Though at one time she’d tried not to, she’d long since given in to liking it too; always an intensely physical man, Jayne was most purely elemental in these times.  Much of his mental activity was focused on what his body was doing; this muscle, that one, heart rate and breathing.  He did keep his awareness, of the open hatchways and material space around him.  But he could almost completely shut down everything else.  She envied him that and reveled in the peace of it.  He became vitally corporeal and basic and sometimes she yearned to be that with him.

 

A gust of breath, a sigh, ghosted over the hair on the backs of Jayne’s hands and they clenched a little, at that proof of River’s nearness.  She was prone on the grating above him, staring like she did, watching him. 

 

Since they’d been partnering, they’d both developed senses about where the other was on jobs.  They had to know what direction to provide cover for, where to lay down fire.  But that had recently evolved into something more for Jayne. He’d known she was there, had known every time she watched him work out for the past few weeks.  He’d become so aware of her he didn’t have to see or hear a thing when she entered a room.  He’d know, and if he turned, there she’d be. Today she’d crept in silent as ever, and he’d traced every step as she climbed, came nearer and nearer, then stretched herself out right above him. 

 

“Mountain man,” she breathed. “Man mountain.” He frowned.  She could still spout the oddest things, when she wanted to.

 

River breathed. She noticed it wasn’t in rhythm with his. She wondered what his chest would feel like, rising and falling against the movement of hers, unsyncopated; doing just that, no sparring or practicing. Just breathing, together. Heat spiraled through her at the thought and she had to leave, had to get away from its source. She got up abruptly and headed for the engine room to collect Darwhen.

 

Jayne let himself watch her leave, her orange skirt drifting about and behind, the last part of her that he saw.  When she was fully gone, he was still looking after, staring at that empty patch in the doorway. 

\-------

It took until midway through the next day to locate the nearest village, for it was well hidden from fly-overs.  Even then, they didn’t really locate it, just its remains.  It had been situated in a side canyon from Darwhen’s, but the water had still reached it, and it was apparently even smaller and less equipped to deal with the deluge that had swept over it.  It was in a widened out-bend, though, and the water had receded into its original course in the time they took to find it. They buried what bodies they could find, and salvaged what few goods there were.

 

Dinner that night was rather subdued. There were too many images of pulverized buildings and brokenness for anyone to be able to make light talk. 

 

Jayne took a huge bite of protein and regarded the kid who was seated across from him while he chewed it.  She looked up and swallowed her own bite.

 

“How come you gots a girl’s name?” she asked.

 

Jayne grunted.  Beside him, River giggled. He glared sideways at her, with no effect.

 

Simon laughed.  “Now … where have I heard that before?”

 

Jayne shifted the focal point of his glare. When no answer seemed forthcoming, Darwhen chewed and swallowed and was on to her next question.

 

“Are you forgived?”

 

Now Jayne just stared.

 

“What?”

 

“Are you forgived,” Darwhen emphasized impatiently.  “Like you said before.”

 

“Forgived for what?”

 

“For the bad things you do. If I do get to go to heaven will you be there?”  Her eyes were bright and earnest.  The kid was obsessed with heaven.  ‘Course, considering what she’d just been through, he didn’t suppose that was terribly odd.

 

Beside him, Jayne could feel River quivering with laughter.  Wo de ma*, he wished he’d never started on the heaven thing at all.  Religion was all well and good, but it could get you into trouble too, sure enough.

 

“How d’ ya know I do bad things?” he challenged Darwhen.  Mal snorted. Heads shook all around the table.  Even Inara rolled her eyes. The oppressive air in the room had suddenly lightened.

 

“You said,” Darwhen asserted. “Everybody does.”  Oh, yeah.  He had told her everybody did wrong. River was still laughing.

 

He pushed his leg against hers to send a message to shut up.  It seemed to work; she was instantly still.  “If I ask for it, I’m as forgiven as anyone else,” Jayne told Darwhen belligerently.  He left his leg where it was.  Felt good.  “’n I have done some right bad things.”

 

“Never doubt it,” Mal advised Darwhen solemnly.  Her return nod was just as grave.  Inara had to duck her head to hide her smile.

 

Darwhen’s face looked worried, though. Jayne shifted in his seat. His thigh slid along River’s smaller one.  He thought he heard a quiet gasp from her.

 

“If I can get forgiveness, it’s sure that you can.”  He was continuing, after a nasty face at Mal. “So you ain’t gotta worry none ‘bout yer own. You listenin’ t’ me, girl?”

 

Darwhen nodded, her face thoughtful.

 

Mal leaned over to Inara, to speak in a stage whisper.  “Is our mercenary channeling Shepherd Book?”

 

There was bemusement in the air over the rest of the crew.  Kaylee broke it with a laugh. Simon shook his head and stared around the table as if looking for anyone else who might be having reality issues. Zoë’s brows were up.  Inara tilted her head speculatively, her hand on Mal’s arm. 

 

Simon’s sister was looking rather fixedly at Darwhen.  Simon probably supposed that she was trying to Read whatever it was in the child that inspired Jayne to such heights.

 

He was wrong, of course.

 

River was too busy trying to keep her head above the sensations spilling in from where Jayne touched her.  The side of him was hard and warm.  Just skin just bone just muscle she told herself. Felt them before. She stared at her own hand clenched just a bit too tightly around her water glass.  The mere touch of his leg shouldn’t batter at her so. 

 

River had known she reacted to Jayne’s touch in a singular fashion.  Touch was a tricky and intimate, complicated and awkward thing, for her.  And she’d always found Jayne’s to be the most so.  Therefore it was good it hardly ever happened … mostly when she was hurt and needed his support, or he was and needed hers.  A time or two, there’d been a hand on her shoulder. She could count them all up, every instance over a four-year period. 

 

This was new, though.  His leg was just there, touching, and he didn’t move it away.  Two layers of cloth, then skin and skin, muscle against muscle.  She drew in a long breath and took a bite.  Why didn’t he move it?  It was greatly disturbing to her equilibrium.

 

“ … River?”

 

She suddenly realized Mal had asked her a question and she had no idea what it was.

 

“Please repeat the question,” she asked. There was heat in her cheeks.  “I was distracted.”

 

“Yeah, well, Jayne did the same thing to the rest of us,” Mal allowed.

 

Oh, I don’t think so.  In that instant more than ever before River was grateful for the control she’d gained over what her brain sent out her mouth.

 

Jayne’s leg shifted against hers again, quite deliberately this time.  Her fingers clamped on her spoon.  He took a bite of his food.  She swallowed. His pants-covered calf slid over too, and rubbed. River twitched in her seat.  Jayne’s hand descended from the table and landed on her thigh.  River shot to her feet.

 

Now she was the focus of all eyes.  She ignored them, trying to still her frantic heart.  Frowning, she collected her still half-full plate and utensils, deliberately; deposited them in the sink, slowly; and exited the room without hearing Simon’s call after her.

 

Jayne narrowed his eyes at his plate. Now, that had been all kinds of interesting.

________________

* Mother of God


	6. Attempting Resistance

 

In a week, they didn’t find another settlement on the little barren world, nor records of such.  They took time to raise a stone and do ceremony for those from Darwhen’s town who’d died beneath the water, and especially for her mother. Now free of her arm cast, Darwhen observed it all closely, letting a few tears escape but not many.  She was mostly quiet.  River figured that was normal for what she’d been through.

 

Throughout the week, River tried not to be obvious about avoiding Jayne; it was easier without having to use the crutches anymore. Doors were opening when she meant them to be closed.  In a world where so many things had happened to her and around her and about her without and against her will, anything she could control was precious.  The thought of one more thing, an emotion or reaction that she could not rule … sometimes she managed equanimity. But other times she felt that that one more thing would break her, again and finally.

 

It had been a comfort to think Jayne didn’t feel the attraction.  She’d walled up her brain a long time ago, and only left a few bricks loose to take out now and then on the job, to let the thoughts of others filter into hers.  She wasn’t Reading Jayne.  But she knew he didn’t dwell in his thoughts. So he’d probably not processed out what she was doing, watching and wanting him.  She supposed that being sane, he might not need to process.  It had felt safe to want and watch, because he didn’t and so there was distance.

 

But there at the table she’d known he’d felt something.  And he hadn’t fought it for one second.  He’d given in. Mentally succumbed to the craving; cheddar and apples.  The sharpness and sweetness, the addictiveness.  And she was afraid that if they were both wanting, but she was the only one fighting, she wouldn’t be strong enough.

 

Addiction was dangerous, she’d always been told.  Because once the physical dependency was gone, it was the psychological hold that kept you trapped.  The emotional dependence on the high, the tactile fixations, the need that went beyond chemical.

 

She and Jayne had chemistry, it seemed, likely the kind that exploded labs.  But there was more.  There were the opening doors . . . and she didn’t know if she was strong enough to handle what might be on the other side.

 

A meeting of the crew’s minds headed them off-world, to the next nearest planet.  Mal grumbled about the unlikeliness of findin’ a payin’ job there.

 

“Wasting time and fuel, Albatross,” he muttered as they stamped off the ramp and out into the dusty sunlight of the new world.  Darwhen, as always, was at River’s side and stared up at him.  River let a hand drift through the girl’s tight curls while she glared at her captain.

 

“The provision of a family is of greater import than monetary assets,” she said.  “There will be time to make a payday later.  Darwhen needs to not be alone in the ‘verse.”

 

Mal couldn’t argue with that, really, but he tried.

 

“Ain’t gonna have much to find her a family with, we don’t find us some of those assets.” 

 

‘Assets’ didn’t sound like a very nice word. Darwhen purposed to look it up when they got back on the ship.  Then she remembered she might not be coming back.  If they found somebody to take her in, here, she’d be staying.

 

She turned her head back toward Serenity as they walked away.  Somehow it didn’t seem such a bad place, right then.  It was more like the way she first saw it, hanging in the air to rescue her and River.  It seemed if she ran to it, she’d be rescued again.

 

Darwhen let go of River’s pants leg and reached up for her hand.  Surprised, River looked down, but kept walking while their fingers twined.  She’d gotten so used to that small weight on her leg that it felt strange to walk without it.  But she found she liked the hand-holding better.  Darwhen’s hand was tiny; River felt her heart kink up a little as she pressed the small fingers gently.

 

Jayne walked at River’s other side, which was his accustomed place.  He was considering on things.

 

That night at the dinner table, when she’d reacted so violently to just his leg against hers, had gotten him to thinking. All those times she’d come to him in the cargo bay, watched him work out, and gotten close enough that his calm was seriously disturbed … might be she was feelin’ the same kind of attraction he’d been, and wasn’t sure how to handle it.  He knew she could feel sexual tension and desire; she’d hooked up a time or two when they sat down on worlds for longer’n a week.  He leered to himself, remembering the doc’s reaction when he’d found out about it.  That was after they’d lifted from dirt the second time she’d been with somebody.  That time, River had just tossed her head and declared her independence.

 

The first time … Jayne doubted Simon knew yet about the first time.  She’d never breathed a word to anyone, that he could tell.

 

Jayne had still been adjusting to treating River like an equal, then. They’d sat down on a moderate-size Rim world to find some business. Instead of a cargo job, somehow Mal had ended up taking on a security detail for a month-long house party on some moneyed muckety-muck’s country estate – the kind of muckety-muck who wanted his security to be a little less law-abidin’ than was the norm.  Mal had assigned them shifts in pairings that had been becoming automatic; Mal and Zoë alternated patrolling the house and grounds with River and Jayne.  Simon and Kaylee did background checks on every guest and servant and ran communications.  Inara mingled as a guest, spying on the other invitees for their host. 

 

There had been an actual guest, son of one of the richest men on this particular planet, who’d been fascinated by what Jayne had to guess was the daintiest security guard he’d ever seen. A few years older than River, he’d started hanging around on their night shift, pestering the girl with questions and generally making himself all manner of annoying. 

 

River hadn’t been annoyed, though.  She’d been wary, then interested.  She no longer hung around after they were done workin’ to talk things over with Jayne.  She’d disappear, off in the early morning with that kid for company. 

 

Jayne hadn’t done anything but wish her good sexin’.  She didn’t say anything about it to anyone and he didn’t figure it was anyone’s business but hers. Aside from finding that he missed their little post-job business talks, he didn’t think much about it. Till it was time to leave. 

 

They’d been walking their last tour of the perimeter, the pale sun just starting to peek over the rim of the walled-in gardens.  River’d been quiet all night long, but he was used to that, didn’t think much on it.  He did notice the tightening of her face when the kid showed up, but she went with him easily enough, so Jayne just headed off to a beer and bed.

 

They were loading up supplies that afternoon and preparing to take off when River reappeared.  Jayne was the only one in the cargo bay when she pushed her head silent around the airlock frame, like she didn’t want to be seen. When she saw it was just her partner, she headed on in.  He saw right off she’d been cryin’, though she tried to hide it with her hair.  He reached out as she passed him and lifted it aside, looked at her to let her know he’d caught her. 

 

“Got yer heart broke, huh?” He kept his voice low.  She just looked at him with big wet eyes.

 

“Desolation,” she said after a minute.  “A hired security guard is not good enough to be a prospect for a long-term relationship.”

 

Jayne shrugged, letting his hand fall.  “Mebbe not for one half-fancy Core wannabe.  If his kid’s not smart enough to recognize the worth of ya, he don’t deserve ya.”

 

She frowned at him. He laughed.  “Yeah, I know, not much help right now, is it? Don’t worry, the first time’s rough on most everyone.  I got the cure in my bunk.”

 

So he’d taken her along, gotten her good and drunk – she was a singing drunk, which he’d never have guessed – and then carried her off to her own bed, though she didn’t remember that part.  They never discussed it again.  Far as he knew, she never discussed it with anybody.

 

Her business.

 

But right now he was tryin’ to recall how it’d felt, to carry her back to her bunk.  All he could remember with certainty was bein’ grateful Simon and Kaylee shared, so he didn’t get caught doin’ it. 

 

What he did recall every detail of, was hauling her unto Serenity in that harness after the dam broke.  She’d been limp as a rag.  He’d been as afraid as if Reavers were on his back trail, only it wasn’t a fear of getin’ dead.  It was a fear of losin’ something. Since he’d never had much but his ma and his guns, and now this crew, he wasn’t accustomed to the feeling.  Didn’t recognize it right away.

 

But he’d turned around one day and noticed that she’d become important.  Intensely, vitally important to him and his well-being.  If she wasn’t right, he wasn’t right. If she was gone … well, he figured glumly that he probably would be, too.

 

They were headed to a fair-to-middlin’ sized town, its more impressive buildings situated at the center, some of them as high as six stories.  Jayne had on his best cargo pants and nicest t-shirt, because Mal had insisted.  “How we gonna get her off our hands if it looks like a bunch of no-good thieves been havin’ the keepin’ of her?” the captain had reasoned (no matter, Jayne guessed, that they were thieves).  “No one respectable’ll want her.”  Jayne also noticed it went without sayin’ that they weren’t givin’ her to anyone not respectable.

 

And, apparently, this planet didn’t have anyone respectable enough.  Because when they lifted, they still had the kid.  Zoë didn’t even complain about it.  The only people who’d shown an interest were a couple so elderly and decrepit Jayne doubted they could take care of themselves, and a hard-faced woman who Mal said prob’ly hadn’t changed out of, much less cleaned, her own dress in a matter of months. River’s face had said all she needed without her opening her mouth.

 

There was a small incident on the way back to Serenity, when a group of local boys rushing down the street bowled into River, who was walking with Darwhen up the boardwalk a bit apart from the other crew. One of the boys darted between them, and the girl’s hand was pulled loose from River.  Somehow her brain flashed back and locked on that moment in the canyon, when she felt the child’s arms being flung away from her neck and there was certainty that they were both going to be dead.

 

“River? River!”  A hand was on her shoulder, shaking her, when she became aware of her surroundings again.  Her brother’s familiar voice battered through the pounding of fear in her blood and brought back the scent of dust and the sounds of the town.  She blinked around to find her crew patiently waiting a distance away.  She herself was stock-still in the middle of the street, instead of the boardwalk which she remembered being on last.  Darwhen – she felt panic again, for a moment, before she saw her standing against Jayne’s leg.  The big man was a few paces behind Simon, watching River with a few frown lines between his eyes.  He didn’t seem to mind the small hand hanging unto his pant pocket. His expression cleared when River straightened from her crouching posture and tried to smile into Darwhen’s face.  The little girl was staring at her with puzzlement.

 

“I’m all right,” River assured her, tamping down some nausea.  She nodded her head briskly to cover the embarrassment she invariably felt after having one of her episodes in public.  They were so rare now, that she continued to nurse the hope that they’d eventually be gone altogether.  Every one she experienced felt like a setback.

 

The crew, accustomed to both the occurrences and River’s generally quick recovery from them, resumed its route to Serenity.  River dropped into step beside Darwhen, and felt a relief she couldn’t explain when the girl reached for her pants leg.  She hadn’t let go of Jayne’s, though, and so they walked along linked like that, the three of them. 

 

“You OK?” Darwhen ventured at last.  River smiled down at her concerned expression.

 

“Yes,” she said firmly.  “I’m fine now.”

 

“What happened?”

 

River bit her lip.  She wasn’t sure how to answer that.  She knew how to explain herself to a doctor, how to describe her symptoms and their triggers.  She didn’t know how to make things clear to a five-year-old without scaring or confusing her. She looked up to Jayne as she cast mentally for a reply.  He just quirked an eyebrow at her. She glared and he grinned.

 

“A long time ago, some bad people did things with my brain that – weren’t good for it.  Weren’t good for me.  Sometimes I don’t always act like other people, who have whole brains, would.  Just now, those boys running towards and around us reminded me of when we were in the water.  And I felt like I was there again, holding unto that statue.”  She couldn’t think of what else to say.  Darwhen’s nose was wrinkling. 

 

“What about when you work?  Do you get scared then?”

 

River shook her head, glanced at Jayne again.  He was just watching her, striding along with Darwhen’s fingers now entwined in one of the tool loops sticking out of his left pant leg seam.  The sight struck her somehow and gave her heart a little lurch.

 

“I never get upset like that on the job,” she told Darwhen honestly, averting her eyes from Jayne’s down to child-level again. “I think because I’m concentrating so hard, that my mind all works together and I can control it.  When I’m relaxed, though, sometimes things catch me off-guard.  Like today.”

 

Darwhen narrowed her eyes as she stared at River, one side of her mouth tucked in as she chewed on her lip.  River wasn’t certain she understood, but she couldn’t think of another way to explain herself.

 

“Hey, when she works River’s with me,” Jayne inserted.  He tilted his head down at Darwhen.  “What’s she got to worry about then, with me watching her back?”

 

Darwhen considered that, and then nodded slowly.  Her face lightened.  Apparently she considered having Jayne at one’s side to be a good thing.

 

River walked beside the two of them and, despite her recent lack of ease in Jayne's presence, she had to agree.

____________


	7. Progression of Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After posting the chapters after this I realized the whole second half of this one is missing! Sorry, it's now uploaded!

Darwhen had to admit that a funny tight feeling in her chest went away while she watched that planet drop out of sight from the cockpit interior.  Either the woman or the old people, though they hadn’t seemed mean, would have been worse than Serenity. She didn’t really want another family, though she knew she had to have a place.  Her mama had always told her it was important.  Their little house was important, she’d said, not because it was big or fancy, ‘cus it surely wasn’t.  But because it was theirs. It was where they ‘kept faith’ (Darwhen wasn’t actually sure what that meant) and ‘had heart’ (she wasn’t too positive about that one, either). 

 

Faith-keeping and heart-having were important.  As soon as she found out what exactly they were, Darwhen would do them.  Even though her mama couldn’t anymore. But she had to have a place for it.  

 

And after awhile, it started to occur to Darwhen that Serenity was a place.  If she had to have one, why couldn’t it be Serenity?  Some time went by – River said it was a month – and even the Zoë woman didn’t seem so mean or ignore her all the time.  And one day Darwhen fell, running in the common area, and remembering Mal’s rules had frozen there on the floor in fear of an explosion of his wrath. She still couldn’t forget how he’d made River mad.  But he only shook his head and shooed her off to Simon to get a bandaide for her skinned knee.

 

Maybe he wasn’t so scary after all. Especially if Inara, the beautiful soft lady, liked him. Which she must, since they lived in the same bunk.

 

Darwhen had liked Jayne since she first saw him, putting down the harness to rescue her and River.  He was big and strong and didn’t treat her like most adults treat little kids. And she knew she was going to be sad when she couldn’t have River around anymore. 

 

A funny thing about River and Jayne; she couldn’t figure them out.  They didn’t live together like Mal and Inara or Simon and Kaylee.  But they were together, in someway different.  Even on days when Jayne had been doing a lot of touching and River took to leaving the room when he came in.  Sometimes he did the touching, sometimes he didn’t.  Darwhen always wanted to laugh when he did. He’d put his hand on her hand, or stand real close, or pretend he had to get something on the counter behind her that took both arms around her … and River would jerk her hand away, or jump, or leave the room.  And Jayne would smile to himself.

 

Darwhen would have asked one of the other grown-ups about it, ‘cept Jayne never did it where they could see.  They didn’t know.  Darwhen guessed he thought she didn’t see it, either. 

 

But she changed her mind about what he thought one night in the galley, a night that Jayne had made dinner.  They did that here, took turns, and Darwhen didn’t think it was always a good idea. Nice soft Inara couldn’t even make cookies right, though she tried and so Darwhen lied and said they were good.  

Darwhen's mama was a good cook.  She said Darwhen would learn, later, when she was bigger.  Darwhen guessed that wouldn't happen now.  And she didn't like that she kept remembering things about her mama and there was no one here who had known her enough that they would remember them, too.

 

Anyway, Jayne could cook some things. And he was going to wash dishes after they ate what he cooked that night, Darwhen could tell when he got the soap out. 

 

Everybody else was just leaving the table with a mess all over it.  So Darwhen picked up her plate and chopsticks and carried them, careful like Mama taught her, to the sink where he was. Most of the others were gone out of the galley now. Jayne stared at her while he turned the water on.  That was one of the things she liked about him; when he didn’t understand her, he acted like it.  He didn’t just pretend he knew everything like lots of other people she had known.

 

She also liked him just because he was so big. Darwhen had never had a papa, and never really missed having one.  But some of the other kids in her town had had papas.  And she thought smugly that none of them, that she could remember, had been as big as Jayne was. 

 

She put those dishes in the sink – well, they kinda dropped -- and went back for some of the others.  She saw River still at the table, and wondered why she stayed if she wasn’t going to help.

 

Darwhen brought more dishes and put them in the sink with the others; but now there was water in the sink and she had to stand on tip-toe anyway and still couldn’t quite reach the bottom of the sink.  The other dishes had clattered but these ones splashed, because Jayne had run the water into it.

 

They splashed a lot, really, and it got on his white t-shirt.

 

“Wei!” He said, loud, and he was frowning.  Darwhen stood still, not sure if he was gong to holler at her. He did look kinda mad.

 

“This’s my only good white t-shirt,” he said, crossing his arms.  Darwhen wrinkled her nose.

 

“Soap and water won’t hurt it,” she pointed out. 

 

His arm dropped on the counter while he looked at her.  Then somehow, too fast for her to see, his hand was in the water and then there was a lot of water on her.

 

Blinking through wet eyelashes, Darwhen couldn’t close her mouth for a second, she was so surprised.  But then she laughed. Right out loud, without thinking about it.

 

“You got me wet!” she screeched, while making a dive away for a chair.  Jayne watched her drag one over to the counter and climb up on it.

 

“You got me first,” he said, eyes narrow, and put his hands on his hips. “What’re you doin’?”

 

Giggling, Darwhen leaned over the now-full sink and slapped her hands flat down into it, hard. Water splashed everywhere – on the counter, on her, on the floor, and on Jayne.  He howled, and before she knew it she’d been swooped off the chair and was being held sideways under one of his great muscle-ey arms, while he turned the hand sprayer on her.

 

‘Course, since he was holdin’ her, they just both of them got wetter.  Laughing madly – ‘like a hyena’, her mama said – Darwhen wriggled and squirmed and got her hand over the lip of the sink and splashed again.   Jayne was starting to laugh, too; she could feel it creaking in his chest kinda rusty like he hadn’t used it in awhile.   

 

They were drenched by the time there was a loud, “Hey!” that stopped their wrestling. The interruption was Mal, in the doorway.  His arms were crossed and he was frowning.  But even though she was upside-down Darwhen could tell the captain wasn’t really very angry.

 

Jayne set her down on her feet, anyway; down into a puddle.  Her clothes stuck on her when she moved.  Jayne’s clothes were sticking to him, too. 

 

“Think water’s just free?” Mal wanted to know.  “Looks like you wasted several liters’ worth.  Comin’ outta your next payday.”

 

Darwhen knew her eyes got big.  “I don’t got a payday,” she said. She latched unto Jayne’s pants and water wrung out between her fingers.  She held back a giggle. Jayne shook his head disgustedly, but at Mal, she thought. He still had the hand sprayer and it tilted in Mal’s direction.  Just a little bit.  Then he reached to turn it off.

 

Mal cocked his head at Darwhen and bent his shoulders in a funny sort of half-bow.

 

“You, miss, can work it off.  Starting now.” The captain nodded his chin at the dishes still in the sink, still dirty.  Then he smiled, smug.  Then he left.

 

Darwhen shrugged, and shook the water out of her eyes.  She had been gonna help with the dishes anyway.

 

Turning loose of Jayne’s pants, she saw River standing by the table.  She hadn’t known she was still there; she must have just been watchin’ Darwhen and Jayne play. Yep, River was staring at Jayne. Staring at his wet clothes, Darwhen thought. Or maybe not, because you could see lots of Jayne through the clothes with them soaked like they were.

 

Jayne had seen River, too. He shook water out of his hair, and then he walked over to her.  He walked like he had something to show off, although Darwhen couldn’t figure what it would be. He had got so much water on him his t-shirt didn’t look white anymore, it looked like his chest. Darwhen giggled again.

 

River wasn’t laughing, though.  She maybe thought he did have something to show off, because she was watching his wet t-shirt while Jayne walked up real close to her. Real close, and River backed up a step but Jayne followed her and got her waist in his hands.  They were still wet and so River’s dress got a little wet too.  And River was breathin’ kinda fast and couldn’t seem to look anywhere but at Jayne.

 

“Did you enjoy the show?” Jayne asked her, and his voice was low and a little rough.

 

River put her head back and her hands on Jayne’s shoulders.  Water dripped on her from his hair. Her eyes were only half-open.  “Yes,” she said, though Darwhen could hardly hear her. And she moved closer to him, just for a minute, but then she pushed away.  And Jayne let go and watched her leave, his hands on his hips again.  He was breathing a little fast, too, and Darwhen watched, sure he’d forgotten she was in the room.

 

But in a little bit he turned and looked right at her.  And he winked. And that was how Darwhen knew he’d known all along that she noticed him and River. 

 

“No ya don’t,” he said as she climbed back up on her chair, preparatory to following Mal’s orders.  He came over by her and scooted her, chair and all, away from the sink.  He opened a drawer and then shoved a towel at her.  “I’ll wash. And rinse.  All the watery parts, I’ll do.  You dry.”

 

Darwhen nodded agreeably.

____________^

More time went, and Darwhen began to relax more. Because River found something wrong with every person who said they might want to adopt Darwhen. Most of the time Mal agreed with her.  The crew had started doing jobs in between looking for a place to leave her, because they had to eat.  A few times when River shook her head and said ‘no’ to a prospective parent, Mal shook his head too and said something about Darwhen turning into a permanent fixture.  River had smiled small, like she liked that idea, and Darwhen had hurt for hoping.

 

One day River decided Darwhen couldn’t go around in adult-sized t-shirts any longer.  Or she’d been trying so hard to stay away from Jayne that she was tired and needed a distraction.  Whichever, for the first time since having Darwhen on board, they’d landed on a planet where children’s clothes might be had, and she told Mal firmly that she and Darwhen were going shopping.

 

“Long as it’s your money, fine.  And since you’re going …” Mal walked from the cockpit to holler out into the hallway. “Jayne!”

 

River sighed.  Her distraction plan was obviously going to backfire.  She couldn’t very well complain about Jayne coming, unless she wanted to answer all sorts of questions she preferred not to deal with.

 

The mercenary’s head popped around the corner in response.  “Yeah?”

 

“Take the supply list and these two”- the captain gestured back into the cockpit at River and Darwhen- “and go into town, stock up.”

 

Jayne glanced back at River, who was rolling her eyes, and Darwhen, who was feeling a real smile coming on.  She liked shopping.  And she hoped that River would talk in her sometimes sing-songy way, and that Jayne would growl like a bear.

 

Jayne was walking down the corridor toward them, bent sideways buttoning a pocket on the leg of his pants.  “Why I gotta take the kid shopping?” He didn’t say a word of objection to River.

 

“Girl needs clothes,” Mal answered, walking past as Jayne reached the cockpit.

 

“You’re sending me shopping for  _little girl’s clothes?!”_  Jayne’s voice was the opposite of a growl – it almost squeaked. Darwhen felt her smile get bigger.  She liked the squeak almost as much as she did the growls.

 

“Just do it. Kaylee and Simon are getting the engine parts.  They’ll have their hands full, and it’s a completely different side of town.  Zoë …” Mal shrugged as he left.  It went without saying that Zoë, for all her softened attitude, wasn’t going to accompany Darwhen shopping.

 

River produced the supply list and waved it at Jayne. “The females will transport the clothing, and the male may carry the food, to preserve his dignity.” Her voice was sing-songy. Darwhen giggled.

 

Jayne growled.  Darwhen laughed right out loud.  His face swiveled toward her, his eyebrows making lines all over his forehead.  He growled again, and Darwhen laughed again in delight. 

 

“What’s so funny?” Jayne demanded. Darwhen flung her arms out on either side.

 

“You growl like a big bear, Jayne! But you don’t scare  _me_.  I think you could be a teddy bear, if you had more hair.”

 

Jayne stared at the kid, pole-axed.  A teddy bear?  A gorram stuffed animal, that’s what she thought he was?

 

River was laughing, her face light and beautiful.  He liked the sight and he’d missed her and so all he did was roll his eyes at the two of them.  Darwhen kind of bounced over to him, and there was that hand fisted into his pants leg again.  She grinned up at him while he stared down at her.  He found he didn’t really mind her being there.  In fact, the attention was kind of nice.

 

So he growled down at her again, for effect, and grinned back (just a little) when she giggled. 

 

“Food and little kid clothes, huh?” he said to River.  “Guess we better get started.”

 

River was surprised to find herself welcoming the outing.  But in the past weeks that she’d been avoiding Jayne in any non-work-related situations, she’d been unaccountably lonely.  Even with Darwhen at her side, she had missed someone.  So here in the sun, walking between the small girl who was working her way into River’s heart and the big man who was – well, the sun was out and the temperature was pleasant.  That was enough.

 

It took longer than River would have thought to find and purchase age- and size-appropriate clothing for a child.  This was a world with several farming settlements, and much of the clothing selection reflected that.  There were overalls, coveralls, and more overalls. There was nothing very feminine. Darwhen didn’t seem to mind; in fact, she looked a little relieved that there wasn’t a skirt in sight that would fit her.  River felt otherwise. 

 

“Don’t you have anything else?” She asked the person behind the counter of one of the stores.  Darwhen was starting to get whiney and petulant, and so was Jayne.

 

“This is the third shop we’ve tried,” he told River, pulling her back toward the clothing racks.  “This is what’s here.  Ain’t no frilly little dresses or fancy shoes.  Let’s get what she needs and get to the food.”

 

Darwhen nodded, bouncing up and down on the soles of her feet which were shod with a worn pair of third- or fourth-hand, ill-fitting walking shoes that had been donated to them on their last stop.  River caught sight of the hole in the left one and gave in.

 

“All right.  Try these on.”  She pulled several different pairs of overalls – who’d have guessed they came in that many styles? – shoved most of them at Jayne, and grabbed Darwhen’s hand to lead her to the corner enclosed for that purpose.

 

Darwhen pulled back, protesting.  So did Jayne.  They were both ready to get what they needed and be on to the important stuff, the food. On the need for a good fit, though, River stood firm.  So Jayne stood around outside the fitting room door while River helped the kid on the other side of it, hoping no-one he knew walked by and saw him with little kids’ pants draped over his arm.

 

“Thought you said the females would hold the clothes,” he muttered toward the closed door.  No one heard him. Where he needed to be was in a good cathouse, with a round blonde … his thoughts strayed to River.  No, actually that wasn’t what he needed.

 

There were feminine voices and sounds from inside the little booth, mutterings of ‘turn around’ and ‘no that won’t work’ and ‘stop fussing’ and then, ‘go show Jayne’.  He straightened away from the wall he’d been slouching against, wondering why he had to be consulted as the door swung open.  Darwhen poked her head out, caught sight of Jayne, and rolled her eyes in a perfect imitation of River.  So he wrinkled his nose conspiratorially at her and gestured her over.

 

“Just go along with it,” he whispered to her.  “gripin’ will only make it take longer.” She sighed long-sufferingly, then nodded and turned a dutiful circle.

 

“Looks good,” he approved out loud. River nodded and smiled from the doorway.  “Next one,” she enthused. Darwhen groaned but went back into the little closet.  More muttering ensued; occasionally the door would open a crack and River’s hand would appear, into which Jayne would shove the next item of clothing.  If it passed River’s muster, Darwhen was paraded out for Jayne’s inspection.  He invariably approved all River’s choices immediately, earning himself smiles from both females.

 

After they’d finally found pants, shirts, shoes and underthings, even socks, they went to fill the food order Mal had sent. Between the two tasks, they were busy all morning, and were hungry as they traipsed back to Serenity. And Jayne felt exhausted – he’d never have guessed that buying clothes could take so much out of a person. 

 

Darwhen seemed full of energy, though. She twinkled about between the two adults and sang some little song that her mama had prob’ly taught her.  It sounded vaguely familiar and Jayne thought maybe it was one his own ma had sung to him when he was a kid.

 

All in all, he supposed it hadn’t been a bad morning.  Earlier, while Darwhen had been engrossed in a capture that played a fairy tale, they’d been going through bins filled with protein. He’d come up close behind River as she’d been bent over fishing a packet out of a waist-high bin that was almost empty. “Can ya reach it?” he’d murmured solicitously, standing there but not quite touching. Yet.  River’d straightened right up, and her back had come full up against his front. She’d frozen there, while his body hardened and heat crackled in the air. His blood had sung and he’d been about to press her back forward over that bin with his torso. But Darwhen’s voice had interrupted.

 

“What’s a castle, River?”

 

Jayne cast her a disgruntled frown and River used the moment to duck under his arm and put hers around the little girl, effectively installing her as a barrier between them. 

 

“Chicken,” he said to her.  River’s eyes narrowed at him while Darwhen’s head swung up from her capture with a new curiosity on it.  He just knew she was about to open that mouth again and ask him a question; so he bent over to get the protein packet River had dropped.  That didn’t work.  Darwhen asked him, anyway, why he was calling River a chicken.

 

“Cuz she is,” he answered, throwing the protein in with their other supplies.  He reached for the fairy-tale story Darwhen held, and added it to the pile too.  Wasn’t any kid stuff on the boat, and surely she’d stay out of their way more if she had something to do. The way the kid beamed at him had nothing to do with it. “Don’t she look like a chicken to you, all skinny ‘n squawky?”

 

“Skinny and squawky?!” River sputtered, but Darwhen giggled and she shook her head ruefully. Then she put on an expression of mock-outrage as they made their way to the pay line.  “See, there it is,” Jayne nudged Darwhen. “Little chicken eyes.  Beaky chicken nose.”

 

Darwhen was chortling as they paid for their things.  She was adding to the litany as they exited the store.  “Skinny chicken legs! Funny chicken hair!”

 

River elevated her maligned nose in the air.  “Chickens do not possess hair,” she informed them regally.  For some reason, Darwhen found this statement hi-larious. Jayne had to admit it was kinda nice to listen to her laugh.  Over the sounds of her squeals, his eyes met River’s smiling ones.  The moment stretched.  Then it was gone, as Darwhen asserted her need for lunch.


	8. Wounded Hope

After the shopping trip, Darwhen’s clothing hung in River’s bunk and her fairy tale had a place in a box there.  River kept saying ‘no’ to people who said they would ‘give the little one a home’.  Every time they left a planet behind Darwhen was in the cockpit beside River.  Then she’d leave, creep down to the bunk they shared, and stare at her clothes hanging there beside River's. And she’d hope a little more.

 

Then one day Mal pulled River aside.

 

“Look River, this ain’t fair to the kid. We’ve passed up at least three decent homes for her, all for your undue fussin’ about somethin’ or other.  It’s gettin’ old. She needs some security, some root-putting so she can get on with growin’, like any kid.  All this runnin’ about and not knowin’ where she’s gonna end up ... it's just not good for her.”

 

River was torn, because she knew he was right.  She remembered that feeling, how it was to not be welcome on the boat and to wonder when she’d be tossed off and where she’d end up.  But she was conflicted – a concept she’d been very proud to have mastered, a few years back. She wanted only good for Darwhen.  But she also, selfishly, just wanted Darwhen.

 

She wanted to keep the little girl.  When she realized it, she went to Inara in distress.

 

“Oh, sweet,” Inara soothed, patting her hand, “You’re nearly twenty-two years old. Many women your age have given some thought to children, or have actually given birth, by now”.  Her own face was a bit distant for a moment, and River put extra effort into not Reading her, as she always did at such times.  “There’s nothing wrong with these feelings.  What you need to do, though, is to think about what’s best for Darwhen.  Is life on this boat what a small child should grow up with?”

 

River supposed not.  She didn’t want to consider it that closely, and one night soon after that talk she found herself outside Jayne’s bunk.  The rest of the crew was abed, and Darwhen had been asleep for a few hours.  It was late.  She stared at the hatch in front of her, telling herself if she put the moments of tension from the past few months behind her she could have what had been before. There had, after all, been the merry moments, the working moments; normal times, interspersed with the awareness and heat that had crept up on the two of them.

 

She could get it back, the normalcy, the friendship that she treasured.  She was purposed to do so.  She knocked, and the hatch swung open.  Jayne was on the other side.

 

He had no shirt on.  River swallowed and nearly stepped back. The sight of all that muscled chest was almost too much.

 

Ridiculous. She firmed her shoulders and dropped down to Jayne’s level.  She’d seen his bare chest enough times that she ought to be immune to it.  At one time, she  _had_ been immune to it. She just needed to get a grip, as he’d told her to do often enough in the past. She nodded to herself.

 

Then she wanted to kick herself, scoot back up the ladder and to the other end of the boat.  She stood in a too-small space with a too-large mercenary who was making no move whatsoever towards covering up a muscled torso she was once again finding completely impossible to ignore.  No matter how many times she’d seen it before, her scar and all.

 

Jayne didn’t said anything, just nodded to her.  He turned toward a corner where he had a bottle stashed for just such occasions.

 

After that time with the fancy not-good-enough-for-her snob, River’d been a drinking buddy a time or two or ten.  She paced herself at approximately half his imbibing speed and they usually ended the night at about the same buzz level. Or, very rarely, the same soused level. After awhile she was his preferred … well, just his preferred. 

 

The first time Jayne and River went out, together, it was to a place a bit more upscale than his usual fare had once been. He’d felt off-kilter, but now those types of places traded off with his rough-and-tumble bars, and he had to admit he’d gotten accustomed to the classier grade of alcohol and of woman to be found there, even if brawling and whoring weren’t quite as regular as he liked.  They were places to which even Simon became gradually resigned, especially as he found that the partners looked out for one another in that setting, too. 

 

If, for example, Jayne judged River had had too much to drink to get back to the boat on her own, he always made sure she had a safe way there, even if he was otherwise occupied. Or one night she’d steered him away from a little lady who she said she sensed a ‘wrongness’ from (she felt freer about intentionally using her abilities with strangers than she did with family, and that came in right handy at times).  Later they’d heard that particular woman had been arrested for the serial murders of four of her bed-partners.  Watch each other’s back, that’s what they did. The crew had come to accept that things were just that way, with Jayne and River.

 

Jayne doubted any of the crew knew about these little late-night, for-two-only parties in his bunk, though.  He felt no need to fill them in.

 

Not their business.

 

In his bunk this night they seated themselves on the floor, and passed the bottle back and forth at an accustomed pace.  Neither spoke. Once, the silence would have been easy, filled with camaraderie.  Now, though, there was an edge to their companionship.  The quiet of the ship and the shading of the light made the cozy space intimate in a way Rivercouldn’t remember from before.  The air was tinged with a taughtness that spoke of possibilities she didn’t want to label.  They passed a length of time without speaking before River made a comment about a training program she’d heard of on the planet they were approaching.  Jayne made a noncommittal grunt in reply.

 

“What’re you really wantin’ to talk about?” He asked, capping the bottle they’d passed desultorily back and forth. If they weren’t going to enjoy it, he’d save it for a time when it wouldn’t be wasted.

 

River’s head tilted forward but she didn’t deny ulterior motives in coming to him tonight.  He stowed the bottle while watching her think.

 

“I don’t know,” she acknowledged at last. “I’m wanting … things not to change.”  She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Just before the dam broke, I had been thinking we were too comfortable on this boat.  That some change would be fortuitous.  And now …” She tilted forward over her crossed legs, avoiding his gaze.

 

Jayne laughed too, though he wasn’t terribly amused either, and it drew her eyes. “Now you know to be careful what you wish for, huh?”

 

River gave him a rueful smile.  “Got that right.” The smile vanished, and for a time the moments were marked only by the slight flicker of gazes caught together. Finally, she wrenched hers free and with a breath, stood.  “I’ll leave you in peace,” she said. 

 

“It’s not peace I’ve been wantin’,” Jayne returned.  Just to say it out loud.  To make her hear it.  River froze to stillness for a moment.  Her eyes darted about the room, everywhere but at his face.  He let her get away without answering.  He paced around her, close but not touching, and opened the hatch.

 

River was definitely not soused, not even buzzed when she left Jayne’s bunk.  But he went with her to her own anyway. Mostly because he didn’t want to be in his bunk alone after she left.  They were quiet, walking down the corridor with that silent tense awareness between them. 

 

When she turned at her bunk she found him up close again.

 

“I’ll stay if you want.”  He said it clearly and calmly.  Her eyes were huge as she looked up at him, like she couldn’t believe he’d said it out loud. 

 

She should know him better than that, by now.  But again, he let her get away with not meeting him point for point.  It wasn’t like her.  But maybe she was right in her hesitancy.  This was his partner.  Best one he’d ever had.  Even for sex – did he really want to change things?

 

Well ... yeah.  If she wanted the sexin’, too.

 

And she did want it, on several levels. He knew that.  The pulse at her throat was hard and fast.  But she was also unsure, he could tell that too.  So he sighed.  Reached out, got her shoulders between his hands, and hauled her up close to him, letting her feel every inch of what she was missin’. Then he stepped back and left her there. But he listened as he walked away, and knew it took a few moments before she was able to move.

\------

 

Avoiding thinking about Darwhen’s situation hadn’t been productive. So River bent her mind, the next morning, to considering it. Most obvious of the problems with the child staying on Serenity was the still not-exactly-legal nature of some ... of much of their employment.  But River didn’t see how such an upbringing could be any worse that her own had turned out to be.  Then there was the uncouthness of some of the crew.  Well, of Jayne.  Again, River didn’t see that as a great impediment, given how well the child and man interacted. 

 

Darwhen wouldn’t be able to go to school. But neither could a lot of other Rim children.  River could teach her anything academic she needed to know; there was Simon for social skills. She knew he’d be willing to do that much.

 

Darwhen wouldn’t have much contact with other children.  At least not until Simon and Kaylee reproduced.  River didn’t really see that as being very far off in the future.

 

Her home wouldn’t be stationary.  River shrugged.  As long as the plant’s roots were strong, who cared if the pot was moved?

 

It came back to herself, to River.  She was the only one even considering parenting Darwhen.  She entertained severe doubts about the viability of that.  She took those doubts to her brother.

 

“I still can’t always trust my brain.  Prob’ly won’t ever be able to.  Won’t ever be 100%.” River sat on the floor with her legs crossed, facing his seated position on the couch.  They weren’t alone in the room.

 

Simon squinted at River.  His sister’s years with the firefly’s crew seemed to be impacting her subconscious speech patterns.  In some of her open moments, a Rim accent occasionally touched her words or her grammar.  It wasn’t as pronounced as Mal’s or Kaylee’s and certainly not as much as Jayne’s, but he assumed time would strengthen it.  He wondered if his own was doing the same thing, without him noticing.  Now didn’t seem the time to ask River about that. 

  

Across the common room at the table that had been installed in the corner, Jayne and Kaylee had heard River’s statement; he could tell by the way their backs straightened, although they didn’t turn towards the sibling pair.

 

“No,” Simon agreed from where he sat on the couch, quiet. He let his sorrow leak into his answer.  “You’ve made some amazing accommodations and adaptations.  You function very well, and the end result is usually within the norm for human behaviour patterns.  But the actual processing that your brain does will never be the same as other people’s.”  He wasn’t sure where she was going, with this.

 

River frowned down at her hands, twisting into the cloth of her cargo pants.

 

“I am not a likely candidate for parenthood,” she murmured.

 

Oh.  Simon darted a glance around the room.  Darwhen wasn’t there – she must be off somewhere pestering Mal or Inara. It went without saying she wasn’t pestering Zoë.

 

“No,” he agreed quietly, knowing the lowered volume didn’t soften the blow of the words. “I don’t – I don’t know that you could ever do that on your own, River.”

 

River nodded at the floor.  She got up, her skirt swishing in about her legs softly. Simon watched with concern, and made to follow her, but she laid a steady hand on his arm to stay him before leaving.

 

Across the room, Jayne had dropped polite pretense and was glaring across at the doctor. 

Kaylee was making shushing noises, but Jayne batted her away from him.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” He finally burst out.  “Tellin’ her she can’t raise a kid because she’ll never be all there? You’ve been tellin’ and tellin’ us how well she’s doin’, how she ain’t crazy no more.  You been lyin’ to us?”

 

Simon leaned forward over his knees, and rested his chin on his palm. He smiled up at Kaylee when she crossed over to sit beside him, but his face was sad as he returned Jayne’s angry gaze calmly.  “No longer crazy? Did I ever say that?  Crazy doesn’t go away, Jayne.  You can’t cure it. You can help, you can make it better.  You can win all the battles – but there’s always another to be fought.  They took out sections of her brain, do you understand?Removed them. Parts of her mind are just missing.  They will never, ever, be there. The remaining parts have compensated, remarkably well.  But she’ll never be normal. There will always be . . . episodes. Do you truly think she should be a child’s primary caregiver? The sole support of a young, helpless, impressionable being?”

 

The merc’s eyes were slitted, but there wasn’t anything he could say.  He truly didn’t feel River would ever hurt Darwhen physically.  She’d been with all of them for over four years, all told, and except for those few incidents before Miranda, had never intentionally injured any of them. ‘Intentional’ being the key word, there, because he had to admit he’d had some mental flashes of bad possibles.  Of River having a fit with only Darwhen about, and no one to help either of them.  Of afterward the little girl being scared of River, too scared to handle the closeness that was between them.  River would be destroyed, and Darwhen would have some not-small problems too. How did one teach a child that no, she should never behave like mama did in certain circumstances, but yes, she should always respect and believe in her?  And that was just for starters.

 

He really didn’t know.  It showed in his face, he knew, ‘cuz Simon twisted his up into a grimace.

 

“She would need a lot of help, Jayne.  A long-term commitment from another person.  Who on this boat would do it? I would be willing, if I didn’t have Kaylee, but …” he trailed off sheepishly, flicking a behind-his-lids look to his wife.

 

“You do got her, and that’s prob’ly as it should be,” Jayne muttered, standing and stretching his shoulders. Kaylee gaped up at him from where she’d gathered Simon’s arm in to comfort him; in all the years since she’d fallen for Simon at first sight, Jayne had never yet admitted that the mechanic and the doctor were for each other. Not even at their wedding.

 

“Will wonders never cease,” Simon murmured, his eyes following the mercenary’s stride out the door.


	9. A Deserted Future

A few disreputable planets later, they found one with a more agreeable status.  It was a Rim world, but a peaceful one for all that, and seemed very settled and relatively prosperous. On it they found a town with a children’s agency, one that would take Darwhen in and try to arrange a permanent home for her.  From all they could discover, it was very respectable, very on the up-and-up. Inara nodded her approval.

 

“This is it,” Mal said firmly.

 

River had no argument.

 

She didn’t even try to smile as she pressed the last of the clothing they’d bought Darwhen into a duffle bag on her mattress and pulled it closed.  Darwhen herself was across the room, sitting against the wall, her arms crossed.  She hadn’t said anything against being left on this world; it had been the plan all along, after all.  But she also hadn’t made any move to help gather her few things for packing.

 

River sensed fright and sorrow and some anger the one time she allowed any leakage through her mental walls, and since she was feeling the same things herself she only swallowed around the knot at the back of her throat and stood. She slung the duffle over a shoulder and turned to look at Darwhen.

 

The child rose to her feet too and stood there looking back, a small form in green overalls with unquiet eyes.  River sighed, and remembered her own leave-taking for the Academy almost eight years ago.

 

There had been lies.  “We’ll write,” her parents promised.  “Call us anytime that you need us.”  She’d known at the time that those were falsehoods, but it was all right because Simon said the same things and meant them.

 

She wanted no lies between herself and Darwhen.

 

“I don’t want you to have to go,” she said with honesty.  Darwhen only dropped her head. 

 

“I wish you could stay here.” River approached and crouched in front of her. “But you need to have a stable family.  It’s not good, to grow up without one.  We think you might find one in this place.”

 

Darwhen didn’t reply; her cheeks scrunched up on the sides, forcing her eyes to narrow.  She was holding back tears. The knowledge ripped a piece off of River’s heart, but she ruthlessly ignored that.

 

“If you need anything – if anything is ever wrong, and whoever is caring for you can’t fix it – no matter when it is – I want you to wave me.”  River cleared her throat, it was closing up on her and making her words come out forced and hoarse.  She held out a small card with Serenity’s contact information on it.  Darwhen shook her head and pressed her back against the wall.

 

“Please,” River whispered.  She blinked back wetness and touched Darwhen’s shoulder. “I wish I could be there to take care of you all the time.  But I can’t.  This is – this is the best that I can do.”

 

There was a pounding on her hatch.  “Get a move on in there,” Mal’s voice called. “We’re all waiting in the mule.”  ‘All’ was himself, Inara, and Simon.  Neither Jayne nor Kaylee had any business in need of doing on this planet, and where staying behind.  Kaylee professed herself unwilling to bear the sadness of the last ride into a town with Darwhen.  Jayne hadn’t explained his unwillingness to go at all, even when Mal pointed out that there’d be at least a few hours of free time and that there were plenty of taverns in the area.

 

“Please,” River said to Darwhen again, ignoring her captain.  The sound of his footsteps retreated.  After what seemed an interminable time, Darwhen lifted a hand and grasped the small card, pulled it away, and tucked it into an overall pocket.  She crossed her arms and stood frowning at the floor without saying anything.

 

River straightened.  Before she could back up a step and turn, however, there were two arms around her and threatening to tip her over. 

 

Still getting comfortable with touch and affection, River nevertheless let the bag she held slide to the floor, and bent and lifted the heavier weight of the child into her arms.  She cradled the warmth of her into her chest and tried to absorb the moment, fix it in her memory, for later when Darwhen was no longer available.  A few of those threatening tears escaped, and so did some of Darwhen’s, but not many.  They were two of a kind, in some ways.  River had come far from the once-uncontrollable displays of emotion that now embarrassed her.  Darwhen had perhaps never had to suffer them, but she was still reluctant to cry in front of others.

 

Despite Mal’s words, no one really looked impatient when the two of them finally reached the mule.  Kaylee lingered in the bay to say good-bye and give a fierce hug to Darwhen.  Jayne never appeared at all.

 

There were no more hugs at the agency.  Darwhen held to River’s hand through the whole process, the talking and the paper-signing and the handing over of belongings.  But when it came time for her to leave with the short fat man and the tall thin woman, she allowed herself to be separated with a quiet dignity that was almost worse than if she’d clung and cried. 

 

She didn’t want the hand of either of the new adults, though.  Instead she reached for the side strap of the duffle containing her belongings, that the short man held, and looped her fingers around that.  No one objected.

 

River whispered goodbye.  Simon waved, Mal nodded, Inara smiled gently.  And that was all.

 

The mule ride back to Serenity was a quiet one.  The evening meal was even quieter. Everyone went to bed early.

\-----------

Two full days later, about midnight, Jayne was cleaning the gun that had seen use that morning clearing up a little misunderstanding with a customer. He hooked it into its place on the wall, and then something made him turn toward the entry ladder.

 

River was at his door; Jayne sensed it before she knocked.  He pushed open the hatch and faced up at her, both of them in t-shirts and sleep pants. Her eyes were bright with tears and had dark circles under them.  He knew she hadn’t slept well the past two nights.

 

“I need to be intoxicated,” she whispered down to him.  He gauged her slight form for a moment, and then turned back into the room, leaving the way clear. River came down, the hatch shutting behind her.  She sat down on the floor while he rooted around and found a long-necked bottle. Then he sat beside her, their backs to his bunk, and passed her the alcohol after taking a swig himself.  She lifted it to her mouth.

 

“How can there be holes where there was never any substance before she came?” River’s voice was dreamy, vague.

 

Jayne leaned over to grab the bottle back from her hand.  He’d learned that if he just let her ride it out, eventually either he’d make sense of what she was sayin’ or she’d shut up.

 

River let her head fall back against his mattress and closed her eyes. “I miss her, Jayne.”

 

He nodded.  That was clear enough. If he was honest, there had been a few moments when he’d be sitting at table the last few days, or with nothing particular to do down in the cargo bay, and he’d kind of missed the kid, too.

 

“Do you want children, Jayne?”

 

He shrugged. “Never planned on it.”

 

“Is there a specific reason?” She reached for the bottle.  He let it go slowly, brushing his fingers along hers.  She pulled it away from him.

 

“Don’t see the point.  ‘Sides, half my genes are respectable, comin’ from my ma, but my pa was a right  _wang bao dahn*_ and I don’t suppose I’d do any better by a kid than he did me ‘n Mattie.”

 

River took a swig and was silent awhile, before speaking again.  “I remember expecting to have a family when I grew up.  But since having grown up crazy, I haven’t given it thought.  Children are for normal people.”

 

Jayne laughed derisively.  “Really? Cuz I can recall some right not-normal people raisin’ kids.  Don’t mean they shoulda been . . .”

 

There was quiet except for intermittent swallowing. 

 

“I don’t think intoxication is a good plan,” Jayne told River as he watched her throat move, head tilted back, hair spilling unto his blanket.  Feelings coursed through him at the sight and he shoved them away.   _Not the time,_  he admonished his groin. “Remember what I told you, River.”

 

“‘Celebrate often, and drown your sorrows occasionally, but never let the alcohol make you a slave'. I recall, Jayne.”

 

River raised the bottle she held to the light and stared through it, rotating it.  Jayne wondered what she saw.

 

“You’ve taught me so much.”

 

He blinked at her.  At first he thought she was talking to the bottle, but then she eyed him sideways.

 

 “Eh? Oh.”  He reached for the bottle. She released it more quickly than necessary, avoiding his touch.  “You mean, like how to track.” He lifted the bottle in a mock salute.  “And how to get drunk.”

 

She smiled but shook her head where it lay back on his mattress.  “I mean like life-lessons, Jayne.”  The smile faded as she angled her torso toward him, drawing her knees up.  She rubbed her cheek against his blanket and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why that would make him hot, but it did. “I mean like, absorb what  _is_ as fast as you can and get on to what needs to be  _done_.  Like, live life as hard as you can or there’s no point.  Like, take pain like a blessing but learn to let it go.”  She said the phrases as thought they were axioms. Maybe to her they were.

 

“Pain like a blessing, don’t think I’ve ever told you that.” Frowning, he took a second mouthful of alcohol before passing it back to her. This time she didn’t jerk away and their fingers met briefly. Pleased with his small victory, Jayne dropped his head back on his bunk to stare at the ceiling.

 

“You told me without words.” River held the bottle but didn’t take another drink. “You believe pain makes you stronger, but only if properly balanced. You tell me that with all your exercise in the bay, no pain no gain.  You tell me with your chosen occupation, with your devotion to your mother, with your decision to stay on this boat.”

 

“Could be I just know not to pass up a good thing.”  He turned his head toward hers on the bunk. He’d been acutely conscious of close they were to each other, but his heart still sped up at the nearness of her face. She’d been staring at his profile, and her eyes were dark liquid, and her lips were deep red.   

 

“Yes,” she whispered while he held her gaze.  “Another lesson, not passing up a good thing.  Maybe I haven’t learned it so well.”  Her empty hand rose between them, hesitated a moment, before filling itself with Jayne’s cheek while he held very still.  Then his gut twisted as uncertainty flashed over her face and she dropped her hand and stood, her motion fluid as if she’d had nothing to drink at all. 

 

Holding still hadn’t worked, so Jayne leaped up after her and for a wonder beat her to the hatch.  She tried to stop her forward momentum but he didn’t let her, grasping her arms and hauling her up against his body.  He'd been so gorram  _patient_ , and things weren't goin'  _nowhere_ , and -- there was just so much he was willing to take. 

 

River moaned at the contact and melted there on him, for an instant, and Jayne took the advantage he’d wanted for months and leaned in and kissed her mouth.  Full, open, pressing. Hard.  She gasped and his tongue was inside her, wrapping around her own. 

 

River couldn’t even summon the will to protest.  It was too much; she was too swamped in the goodness he was giving her.  She let out the groan that was climbing in her throat, while wrapping her arms around his neck and standing up on tip-toe to reach him better.  He helped by grasping her hips and lifting her up off the floor, bracing her against him and both of them against the wall while he slanted his mouth over hers.  He did it with a fierceness that clenched her insides into hard knots of desire.  Her heart trembled with the knowledge that  _this is Jayne, this is your partner,_  but the Jayne-ness was what flared this aching heat through her.  She responded to his mouth with the urgency of months of denied passion. The small space of Jayne's bunk was thick with the taste of what she'd been craving.  It was neither expert nor skilled, that kiss, but it was need and want and togetherness.

 

Jayne was afraid to stop, to give River a moment for second thoughts. But she was talking against his mouth; he caught his name while her hands fisted in his shirt. And he had to breathe sometime.

 

And she might hate him later.

 

So he lifted his head, let his lips slip from hers.  He clenched his jaw and waited. When her eyes drifted open they were dazed.  They cleared quickly, though.  With a sense of inevitability, he watched the doubt creep into them. And then they were damp.

 

So he let her hips slide away from him, too, and eased her down unto the floor even though he was cussing a storm in his head. Her one step back seemed like a ship’s length in distance.  He crossed his arms, feeling deserted.

 

“You gonna do it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.  He cleared it and went on, harshly. “ _This_  is a good thing, a very good thing. You gonna pass on it?”

 

Her gaze dropped to the floor and she crossed her arms defensively in an unconscious imitation of his stance.  He growled and swung to the side, out of the way of the hatch.  She went up it quick for all that her legs trembled.  He had his back turned when she slammed it shut. 


	10. A Damsel in Distress

River contacted that children’s agency, Cooperative for Children, once a week as they traveled farther from the planet where they’d left Darwhen. The day that was Darwhen’s sixth birthday passed. In a few months they received the news that Darwhen had been taken into a family.

 

“We can’t give you any of the details, for confidentiality’s sake, you understand,” the woman speaking said smoothly. “But if all goes well the papers will be finalized within a few weeks, and Darwhen will be settled.”

 

River tried to smile, and she was in fact glad for the circumstance. She hadn’t expected that a child as old as Darwhen would be adopted so quickly, and that she could be was all for the good. 

 

But she still missed her, even as things aboard Serenity had seemed to return to normal. Life moved on, though, and things weren’t the same. She didn’t visit Jayne’s bunk for a midnight drink again. It was too much, missing Darwhen, missing her old easy partnership with him, and trying to avoid thinking about what her own future was likely to be. Would she have to grow old on her own, no one at her side because they weren’t willing to take on the remains of her mental instability? No children to look after her in her old age? She had Serenity, and family here, and she valued that. At the moment, though, they didn’t seem enough to make up for what she couldn’t have.

 

Or for what she feared to reach out and take.

 

Even the jobs the crew did had changed. Mal was making a conscious attempt, under Inara’s influence, to weight their activities more to the legal side. Which, in River’s terms, translated to boring.

 

And Jayne was different.

 

He had stopped the bit of chasing he’d been doing. But they weren’t back to what they had been. There was distance, where once there had been connection. There was edgy silence, where once there had been easy quiet. It wasn’t that they had never had rifts before – they’d argued plentifully. But this felt permanent.

 

It wasn’t comfortable, or simple, or good. It depressed and angered River at the same time. And the remnants of Darwhen’s sojourn with them haunted places she’d sat and things she’d done.

 

One night River awoke in the midst of a rolling bout with her own blanket. She’d been sleeping restlessly, and now something had awakened her. Something specific. She quieted herself and waited, trying to sense out what it had been. Then she untangled herself from her blanket, pulled a pair of shorts on under the oversize T-shirt that she wore, and crept silently from her bunk.

 

Down the crew’s quarters corridor, onto the bridge, to the Cortex. No one was present, but there was an incoming wave. Disturbed, and troubled further that she couldn’t pinpoint the reason, River reached out to accept it.

 

The screen flickered and there was a disorienting close-up view of a red-and-white patterned nightshirt, before its wearer backed up far enough from the screen to be seen. River’s heart kick-started in her chest and then settled down to a more rapid beat than before. The first real smile she’d felt in months came to her mouth.

 

“Darwhen!” She kept her fingers back from touching the image on the screen.

 

The girl there looked back silently for a moment. Past the immediate delight of seeing her, and blocked by distance from Reading, River knew that something was wrong. Her previous unease returned, and she waited tensely.

 

“Hi, River.” Darwhen didn’t smile, and neither did she look straight on so that River had the sense of meeting her eyes. Instead she stared sideways, around the edges, at something to the side that River couldn’t see.

 

“How are you?” River finally encouraged, when nothing more seemed forthcoming. Darwhen chewed on her lip, looked to the side again.

 

“I’m fine,” she said finally. Still staring off, she continued; “I got adopted, you know.”

 

River nodded. “We were happy to hear that, Darwhen. I hope … I hope you’re happy?” She ended the sentence with an up-pitched question mark. She could see perfectly well that the girl wasn’t happy. Her skin looked thin, somehow, and there was a bruised look to the eyes that still wouldn’t come to midline. Her hair didn’t look as though it had been cared for since they’d left her.

 

Darwhen didn’t answer. She looked down, and River could see enough of her hands to know they were twisting around each other. She’d never seen Darwhen do that, even right after her mother had been killed. River was beginning to feel anger, and fright. She tamped them down so that she could concentrate on getting information, and reached to hit the ‘record’ button.

 

“You said I could wave you …” Darwhen’s voice petered out. River’s heart kinked in on itself.

 

“Yes, I did,” she said as gently as she knew how. But the words still came out a little rough, around her fright. “What time is it there?”

 

“It’s late. I couldn’t get to the cortex earlier -- he thinks I’m in bed …” the little girl jerked at a noise in the background, and became very still for a second, hunched in around herself. When nothing else seemed forthcoming, she straightened back up.

 

“Darwhen, where are you?” Half-formed intentions were solidifying in River’s brain.

 

“I’m at Haage’s Width. It’s a little town here …” Darwhen seemed to make a decision; for the first time since the strange conversation began she firmed her lips together and faced right on to River. “It’s not good. Come and get me. River. Please.” There was a glitter of something desperate in the voice and the eyes. Another sound from somewhere closer than before came over the pickup; Darwhen gasped, reached out, and killed the feed.

 

River was already moving. In the pilot’s chair, she charted their current location, found the planet where they’d left Darwhen in the care of others, and plotted the fastest way there. She locked it in and had Serenity on the new course before she went to knock at Mal’s bunk.

 

Inara answered. At the look on River’s distressed face, she stepped back to allow her in, but River shook her head.

 

“Come and see,” she commanded, and turned back to the bridge. She hesitated a moment with an eye to where Jayne lay sleeping; then she shook her head and went to knock there, too. Whatever else was between them, he was her partner. And he was still Jayne.

 

He had sleep in his eyes when he answered, but it was quickly gone a few moments later as the entire crew gathered, some querulously, in the cockpit.

 

“Shush!” River gestured sharply, and the look on her face silenced Simon’s mumblings. She clicked on the screen and Mal shifted his feet at the recorded view of Darwhen’s seated form.

 

“You said I could wave you …” it was evident to all of them that something was wrong. They watched to the end.

 

“ _Je shr shuh muh lan dong shi_ *,” Mal put into the silence afterward.

 

“She looked mighty rough,” Kaylee ventured. Her eyes were wide with anxiety. Simon nodded as he put an arm around her.

 

“Something’s certainly wrong,” he agreed. River sighed, both distressed that they agreed with her assessment and heartened that they were concerned by it. Inara hooked an arm through the captain’s.

 

“Mal,” she started, but didn’t get any further.

 

“We’re going to fix this, right?” It was Zoë’s voice, quiet as always, but assertive. It was clear what she viewed the correct answer to be.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Mal nodded, a bit annoyed that they would question it. “River, plot a course that’ll get us there soonest.”

 

River sighed again, relaxing a bit back into the pilot’s seat. “I have, captain.” She looked him firm in the eyes. “Thank you.”

 

He shook his head. “What needs to be, albatross. No thanks necessary for what’s … necessary.”

 

“Wave the agency,” Inara urged. “Tell them we have reason to be concerned. They need to send an agent to see what the situation is.”

 

River nodded and turned to do her bidding without asking for Mal’s say-so. He didn’t comment, but took over the speaking when a representative showed on the screen. The conversation didn’t go well. Once again, confidentiality was cited, and the woman said soothingly that thorough background checks and continued monitoring ensured every child’s health and well-being. It devolved into a state of veiled threats (not-so-veiled, on Mal’s end) before Zoë reached over and terminated the wave.

 

“Should have let Inara do the talking,” Jayne groused. He’d been pacing back and forth tapping the spot usually occupied by his holster. There was general agreement with that statement, except from Mal, who became captain-ey and then turned the discussion to their fuel situation.

 

“We’ll need to make at least one stop,” Kaylee admitted, with an apologetic glance at River. “This is further than we’d planned.”

 

“That’s understood,” River nodded. “I’ll add that to the course”. She fretted inwardly about the extra half-day it would take, but it couldn’t be helped.

 

There was some lingering after that; no one really felt like going back to bed. Zoë went first, but not before she stopped beside River and laid a brief hand on her shoulder. River looked up to meet her gaze. Zoë nodded, again briefly, and River could almost have smiled as she watched her leave. That was all right, then.

____________

* _What kind of rottenness is this?_

 

\---------

 

The trip seemed interminable. By the third day, River had gone over their course five times, looking for ways to trim its length. She never found any. She played with her food to hide that she wasn’t eating much, and wandered Serenity at night.

 

She also spent large tracts of time exercising in the cargo bay, trying to fight off the load of questions that seemed near to tipping her over.

 

Jayne found her down there, in shorts and a tank, sweaty and tired. Even with her damp hair pulled back in a pony tail and weariness in every bone, even with the depressed air that permeated the ship like oil soaking a clean cloth, he felt a flare of desire at the lithe muscled body revealed by River’s workout clothes. She was struggling, with her leg in the air for one last kick. It trembled as she brought it back to the floor. His lust mingled with annoyance at this evidence that she wasn’t taking care of herself.

 

“How long you been doing this?” He questioned, moving in near to her. She shook her head and let him, which was an indication of how not-herself she was. She stood and swayed a bit and let him extend a hand, slide it up her arm, cup her shoulder. For a second he absorbed that, it felt right and good to have her skin under his.

 

“I don’t know,” she answered him dully. She stood stiffly, and then kind of wilted against the pressure of his arm.

 

“Sit down,” he told her. She silently followed his lead to an exercise mat against one wall, behind a crate, under the catwalk 

 

“Not sleepin’ or eatin’ ain’t gonna help her any,” Jayne said gruffly. He squatted on his heels directly facing her. “Workin’ yerself to a bare nub sure ain’t. If there’s trouble to be had when we get there, she’ll need you in better shape than this.”

 

“Yes, you’re right, I know.” River leaned back against the wall, her knees drawn up. She stared at the ceiling and he stared at her face; and, to be honest, her chest as it drew slow deep breathes. “But I close my eyes and see hers”, River continued, “and I’m at fault, I shouldn’t have let Mal make me let her go.”

 

“We all did that,” he said reprovingly. “We thought it was the best thing. Nobody’s at fault here except that _tian xiz shou you de ren dou gai si_ children’s agency.”

 

River shook her head. “I already tried hating them. It didn’t help.”

 

“Eh.” To Jayne’s mind, fixing the blame on someone else usually helped enormously. “Well, we’re doing what we can. Get there fast. Fix it.”

  
  
“If we can.” River shook her head back and forth against the inner hull. “We don’t even know what’s wrong. The agency might not let us have her back.”

 

Jayne stared, incredulous. “The agency? We’ve fought off Reavers, feds, Operatives, and armies, and you’re worried about some bureaucratic _niao se dub doo gway_?”

 

River blinked, and caught his eye. For the first time in days she felt a little bit like smiling. And also for the first time in days, she really looked at Jayne. The fierce scowl around his eyes, the twist to his lip, the disdainful set to his powerful shoulders. He was so big and real and precious.

 

And close. Her brain quivered with the knowledge of it. How had she let him get so close? She didn’t want to need him, but she did. She didn’t want to be feeling this coursing want through her inner parts, either, just because he was hulking so near and touchable. But she couldn’t seem to help it, and fighting it … was starting to exhaust her.

 

He was rock and she was water and she wanted to be around him, over him, on him, wanted to get into his cracks and fissures and flow through, smooth them out …

 

“Rivers erode rock,” she murmured, voice trembling, “I would grind you down. You’d wear away.”

 

Jayne tracked every word, and the heat in her eyes. Ever only banked, never out, it flared up swift and searing in him. So with a slow-drawn breath, he let his knees drop down on either side of her thighs and tilt him forward. He set a large hand on each of her bare knees, slow, and pushed, so that her feet slid down between his legs and there were no barriers between his torso and hers. River let him do it, let him lean in and over her, brace a fist on the plating beside her head and with the other hand bracket her jaw.

  
She trembled.  So did his hand.

 

“Grind on me all you want to,” he rasped, fingers stroking down her throat while the hard pad of his thumb rubbed across her bottom lip.

 

She swallowed against the swirling ache of desire in her throat, but it didn’t help, and she knew her eyes were wide and she knew his face was coming closer and she did nothing to stop it.

 

She let her mouth meet his hard and fast, let it drop open and welcome his tongue, let herself be pressed up against the coolness of the wall by the heat of his body. And her voice wanted to whimper and her arms wanted to be around him and her hands wanted to know his skin, so she let all of that happen too. His T-shirt rucked up and her fingers dug into the heavenly muscles of his back, while he got both his hands around her hips and pushed again. He bore them both down, till they were flat on the floor and she was covered with his hardness and arcing up against him with mewling cries.

 

His shaky hands massaging into her scalp, he let her mouth go free long enough for gasps of air and then he assaulted her neck, suckling and scraping. Her head turned so her teeth could close over his thumb as she sucked it into her wetness and heat. His breath harsh, he slid his body down hers while his mouth dipped urgently below her jaw.  He heard her want of him in the soft keening she made, and it fired fierce delight in his soul.

 

With her head pressed back against the mat, River shifted her legs agitatedly until one slipped outside his and she got it hooked around his hip.  Jayne let out a long low groan as she used that leverage to crush her pelvis and abdomen full up against him, while he shoved an arm beneath her shoulder-blades and bent her over it. She massaged the clenching muscles of his lower back so hard it hurt him, but it was a good pain, and twisted his craving even tighter in his belly.  Returning the forceful thrust of her hips, he set his teeth under her collarbone.

 

Just as something clanged against the grating above them.

 

He froze, heart pounding, his head in the delicate curve of her shoulder, while her hands fisted on his back. They lay slicked with sweat and panting and trying to be still while someone walked above them. River stared up into the shadows but couldn’t see for a moment, couldn’t really sense anything but Jayne on her and someone unwanted in their space. For it truly did feel as though they’d taken over space and the ‘verse, there, just for a moment.

 

Whoever that was wasn’t going away – they were coming down the stairs. Jayne pressed his mouth into River’s bare arm to muffle one of the vilest things she’d ever heard him say, and then rolled abruptly over and off her. She sat up, slowly, trying to make herself realize that the person was nearly down to the cargo bay level and if they didn’t want to be discovered like this …

 

“Go on,” Jayne hissed at her from the floor, “You gotta distract ‘em. I’m … gonna need a minute.”

 

River just stared hazily into his eyes, still catching her breath, not quite able to disconnect and rejoin the rest of reality. He gestured sharply, and she blinked; then she was able to rise, and walk out from behind the crate.

 

It was Inara, carrying a long metal case. River didn’t even try a smile, but after an attempt at making her hair hide certain areas of reddened and abraded skin (her shorts and tank top were suddenly far too little clothing) she forced her legs to cross to the older woman with her arms out in a wordless offer to help.

 

“No, that’s all right, sweetie, it’s not heavy,” Inara smiled. “Although a little dusty.” River dropped her arms gratefully. They still trembled, and it wasn’t from all the bag-punching they’d been doing.

 

There was a faint thump from around that crate behind her, and River nodded to draw attention.

 

“Weapon casing,” she said, gauging the length and width of the thing. “Your bow, Inara?”

 

Inara’s smile faded. “Yes,” she said. “I’d never thought to need it again. But something about this with Darwhen feels …”

 

“As though such might be required,” River finished quietly. Inara nodded.

 

“River, are you all right? You’re very flushed. You’re losing your strap, there.”

 

River pushed the tank’s thin strap back up her arm. “I’ve just been exercising. Too much, Jayne says.” Ai ya, why had she mentioned Jayne?

 

“Jayne is right. And I think you need to sleep more.” Inara watched River’s eyes dart around the cargo bay and took pity on her. “Food wouldn’t go amiss either, I believe. Let me get this bow settled and then get you some tea.”

 

River felt no desire for tea but she nodded, to get Inara out of the room and concentrating on something else.

______________

 

When they were a day short of their destination, there was another wave from Darwhen. It was short and to the point. It was midday by Serenity’s timetable, and Mal was in the cockpit when it came in. Darwhen wanted River, of course, but she was rushed and broke down quickly and spoke to Mal.

 

He recorded most if it, and he went to find River immediately after. She was with Zoë and Simon in the shuttle, cleaning out the storage for something to do. She’d sensed something, because she was facing him with fear writ large on her expression when he came in.

 

“I just talked to Darwhen,” Mal said quiet-like, knowing it was obvious he had no great yearning to say what had to be said.

 

“How is she?” Zoë asked, in a tone that said she knew it wasn’t good. Mal shook his head. Simon went to hold River’s arm.

 

“The _Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze fuh ur-tze_ that adopted her has been beatin’ on her. He found out she talked to somebody, though not who, and she got hurt for it.” He fell silent, not having anything else to offer the stricken faces before him.

 

River was shaking, but she held to Simon’s hand and spoke.

 

“I want to talk to her.”

  
  
“Don’t think we should be wavin’ back,” Mal spoke soft. “Just make things worse for her. I tried the agency, again, and all they said was that they checked out our complaint.” His lip twisted. “Said there was ‘no cause for concern’, that Darwhen broke some ribs falling off a fence.”

 

“That’s not what Darwhen told you,” River asserted. He shook his head to say that she was right and hoped she wasn’t picking up from his head the few details Darwhen had let slip. River didn’t need that.

 

River’s eyes were wet and too wide as she pulled away from her distressed brother.

 

“I need to go to my bunk, Simon,” she whispered at him, batting softly at his outstretched arm. “Let me go.” She went out the door looking kind of blind, so Mal followed to watch she didn’t fall. She got to her bunk without mishap and closed it behind her.


	11. Knights in Shiny Armor

It was a small, charming white house. There was a well-tended yard with a fence around it and a few half-grown trees. It didn’t look like a place that could inspire the tension in River’s stance or the aggression that had been in Jayne’s when he left the boat. Kaylee chewed her lips at the view of the quiet green-lined street in the lazy town. Beside her, River muttered about being commanded to stay on Serenity when she needed to be out there with the others. Privately, though, Kaylee thought Mal was right; River was too tightly wound emotionally and needed to be a step removed from the action. Two nights back, Simon had seriously been considering sedating his sister, something he hadn’t had to do since Kaylee couldn’t remember when.

 

“Are – are we sure about this?” She questioned tentatively over the comm system, to distract herself from River’s preternatural stillness and the whiteness of her face. “This place don’t look so bad.”

 

Mal was finishing loading his gun and talked without raising his head.

 

“You still able to take things and places like this at face value, we got some talkin’ to do.” He shoved the gun into its holster and nodded casually across the street, to where Kaylee knew Jayne to be hidden in amongst the trees.

 

Mal was right. Kaylee had seen the information herself – Mr. Yarborough’s genetic son had died a few years earlier under very suspicious circumstances, and he’d had to stand trial for the death. But the town mayor was the man’s brother-in-law. The case against him had been a local one, and it was dismissed by the head of the local court – who incidentally was a friend of the mayor. According to Cooperative for Children’s internal policy, however, Mr. Yarborough should have been ruled out as an adoptive parent just based on the fact that he’d been bound by law for such a crime. But, again, the town mayor was his brother-in-law.

 

“The two of you get goin’, now,” Mal said to Zoë and Inara. Minus the bow she’d told River she felt she might need, Inara smoothed the hem of her business jacket with one hand. She and Zoë stepped out down the street into the cool spring sunshine, approached the charming little house as though they’d just come at a leisurely pace from one of the nice mules parked along the street. Meanwhile Mal faded back and around, coming up on the house from the street behind it.

 

Inara knocked on the door at the corner of the house and a pleasant-faced middle-aged man in an oversize green jacket responded. Kaylee leaned in closer to the view screen, trying to see him better from the grainy feed carried by the pickup in Zoë’s collar. River hovered at her side, hands pressed anxiously together. Kaylee set a hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder in attempted reassurance.

 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Yarborough,” Inara smiled all polite and calm-like, “We’re from Cooperative for Children.” She pressed a hand to the ID badge attached to her jacket collar.

 

The man sighed. “Is this about that complaint, again? I’ve spoken with someone else from your agency about this. He said there was no need for an in-person interview.”

 

Inara smiled smoothly while Zoë stood blandly at her side. The first mate must be working very hard at not being intimidating, Kaylee figured, because the man hadn’t cast her even one nervous glance.

 

“We only need to ask a few questions, and speak with the child. For paperwork purposes. It should take no more than ten minutes of your time.”

 

Less, Kaylee prayed; the longer they were there the greater the chance they’d blow their cover and Mal and Jayne would be necessary.

 

“Oh, very well. Come in.” Yarborough stepped back and called, “Darwhen!” into the interior of the house. Kaylee’s heart lurched at the sound of the name.

 

“Actually, sir,” Inara smiled on, “we need to conduct our interview with the girl in private. Your porch makes for a nice, relaxing environment. You understand.”

 

He was frowning now. “No, I don’t.” Behind him, a short shape appeared in the pick-up’s range. Kaylee heard River’s breath quicken. Feet, legs, a torso and finally a head cleared the shadow of the porch’s overhang. Darwhen stood there with her hands behind her back.

 

“Hello, Darwhen,” Inara said quickly, hopefully before Darwhen had time to give anything away, “My name is Ms. Serra and I’ve come from the children’s agency to talk to you for a bit. Would you come out unto the porch with me, please?”

 

 _Please, please,_ Kaylee begged the screen image of the little girl. Slowly, Darwhen nodded, but then tipped her head to look up at the man who stood in the doorway. He shrugged. So she went, followed Inara across to the far end of the porch. Zoë moved half of the distance they did, angled after them but keeping her body between the man and the other two. Yarborough laughed.

 

“What are you, my keeper?” He asked lightly, but Kaylee heard an edge under the words. Out of the corner of her eye she saw River’s hands fist on the console.

 

Zoë smiled blandly over her shoulder just as her captain appeared at the other end of the porch, reaching up to take Darwhen whom Inara was lifting down.

 

“Hey!” The man started forward, his right hand sliding under his jacket – and there was quietly, suddenly, a cocked gun at his temple.

 

“I’m thinking you got one more head than you rightly need.” The big merc growled it. “Please, do, pull that out, so I can relieve you of vital anatomical bits.”

 

River’s hands were clenched around the view screen now. Kaylee tried prying them gently away as Mal, Inara and Darwhen moved out of view of the pickup and Zoë trained a second gun on the piece of _go se*_ that was raising his arms at Jayne’s prodding.

 

“Things straight, there?” she asked the merc who reached around gingerly and pulled Yarborough’s weapon, a knife, from an inside jacket pocket. There’d been no outcry from the street about armed strangers, but Kaylee sure wished they’d hurry.

 

“Yeah,” Jayne answered Zoe, patting Yarborough down roughly. “Gorramit. I was hopin’ he’d put up a fight an’ I could knock it out of him.”

 

Zoë nodded. There was the sound of a mule starting in the background. She traded her gun for some sturdy cuffs and followed Jayne into the house with the _go se_ , where she directed him into a kitchen chair to which she firmly bound him, pressing a gag into his mouth. She headed out the door, and then turned when her crewmate didn’t follow.

 

“Jayne?”

 

He was standing with his fist flexing around his gun. Yarborough, with an inkling that he wasn’t yet out of danger, was shaking his head pleadingly.

 

“I wanta hurt him real bad, Zoë.”

 

Zoë crossed her arms. “I understand, Jayne,” she said quietly. “But we just don’t have time for anything extended here. We gotta go.”

 

Jayne nodded back reluctantly.  He holstered his gun, and Yarborough visibly relaxed.  Jayne couldn't have that, and stepping in he let go an uppercut that snapped the man’s head back and overset the chair. Leaving Yarborough lying there unconscious on the floor, he followed Zoë out the door and into the mule that was idling there with Mal in the driver’s seat.

 

Darwhen was in the mule crowded into Inara’s seat with the woman’s arm about her. When she saw Jayne and Zoe exit the house, though, she stood and turned to clamber over into the back. So before Jayne planted his butt in the seat, he had to scoop her up. And then there was no place for her to sit, except in his lap. Where she curled silently while Mal threw the mule into reverse and they pulled into the street. Darwhen slid sideways as they turned to move forward and Jayne tightened his arms around her to keep her from falling off him. He saw her wince, even though she didn’t say anything. Rib fractures, that agency woman had said. He ground his teeth and wished he’d stayed and finished off that _Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze fuh ur-tze *_ like he’d wanted to. Slow and painful. Woulda been more than worth the jailtime if he’d gotten caught, and Serenity’s crew would’ve broken him out after a bit, anyway.

 

Mal rounded a corner and Jayne had to brace Darwhen again. He was careful to avoid squeezing her ribs, this time.

 

“We gonna be transportin' a kid, we need to get some seatbelts back here,” he hollered at the front. He saw Mal and Inara exchange one of their secret ‘couple’ glances, the kind that here lately made him all kinds of jealous.

 

 

Darwhen said not a word the entire ride back to Serenity, and Simon pulled her into the infirmary the minute she set foot on the ramp. They had got back on Serenity without getting followed; Jayne was a bit surprised.

 

River lifted them into the black before Mal called the children’s agency. Apparently by that point Yarborough had come to and somehow managed to attract attention; their wave was answered swiftly by the woman who’d previously spoken to them, a Ms. Jackson. Crowded unto the bridge with the rest of the crew, Jayne thanked Buddha for the lack of Alliance forces in the area as he saw a uniformed, but local, officer in the background. He added a tag-on for the fact that the planet had lacked the facility to ground-lock Serenity.

 

The agency woman was irate. She got even stiffer when she saw Malcolm Reynold’s face again.

 

“Mr. Reynolds, this is kidnap-,” she began, but he cut her off.

 

“It’s Captain. This” – he shifted out of the way, so that she could see behind him – “is a board-certified physician with a background in trauma and pediatrics. And this is Darwhen. Shut it and listen.”

 

Ms. Jackson glared urbanely and gestured the police officer over while Simon stepped up, his hands on Darwhen’s shoulders.

 

“You’re recording?” He asked Kaylee. She nodded. He faced forward again.

 

“Ms. Jackson, and Cooperative for Children at large; it is my professional judgment that Darwhen LaCroix, a minor aged 6 years 1 month, has experienced physical abuse and neglect in the five months since her last physician’s examination. This abuse is reported by the patient as having occurred during the time period that she was in the care of Mr. Jeremy Yarborough, who was approved as an adoptive parent by Cooperative for Children. Records of my official findings are on their way to you now. Please be aware that we will be contracting legal assistance at our next port of call, and that contact information will be sent to you as well. We’ve already notified your planetary-level authorities, registering a complaint and requesting a full investigation into your practices. Darwhen LaCroix has been removed from an unsatisfactory situation and is currently in a supportive environment.” He nodded over to Kaylee and she killed the feed. Jayne chortled to himself at the look all that high-falutin’, competent-soundin’ language put on the bitch’s face, just before she was cut off.

 

Simon was swamped for a moment in feminine adoration from his wife and his sister, although River soon dropped to the floor to grasp Darwhen’s shoulders. She didn’t hug her – Simon’s swift exam had indeed found two healing rib fractures and assorted bruises, all to areas that were normally covered by clothing. Instead River cupped the small face between unsteady palms and tried to smile through the wet coming from her eyes.

 

“You came and got me,” Darwhen murmured, staring at her.

 

“We came and got you. We could never have left you with him.” River leaned in, a little awkward to Jayne's eyes, to press a kiss to a wrinkled forehead. “I’m sorry, Darwhen, I’m so sorry, we didn’t know.”

 

Jayne grunted from the background but didn’t clarify his meaning to River's querying glance. Darwhen just sighed.

 

“You came and got me,” she repeated, and relaxed into River’s shoulder. River circled her arms around, carefully, and sat back until Darwhen was in her lap.

 

With River and Darwhen taking up floor space like that, it was crowded in the cockpit, and Mal swung himself into the pilot’s seat she’d vacated, shooing everyone else out. There was quiet, the black, a few shuddery sighs, and a quirk of a smile on the captain’s face when he glanced sideways towards the pair on the floor. Jayne knew, because he was hanging around watching through the window.

_\----------_

* dog shit


	12. The Impossible Dream

Jayne was startin’ to think that lettin’ the sexin’ get started that day in the cargo bay had been a bad idea. Because since then, he hadn’t seen a thing of River unless there were other people around or he sneaked it. And he didn’t like the sneakin’. He didn’t like her pushin’ him away when he knew she wanted what he wanted. He didn’t like the rest of the crew not knowin’ his feelings for River, and he didn't like that nasty fake cheese they'd had with lunch, and he just didn’t like life in general.

 

The only good thing, really, was that Darwhen was back. In the few hours since her return he’d decided that she wasn’t actually any more annoying than most people tended to get after too much knowin’ of them, and for some gorram reason she liked him. When she was gone it hadn’t felt like everyone who should be on Serenity, was here.

 

And even that track of thought led him back to the place he didn’t want to go. Because River wanted Darwhen. But she’d need help, according to her brother. And here he was, thinkin’ on an actual long-term consequential relationship with someone he wanted to be sexin’, – and the kid was thrown into the deal. The last thing he’d ever expected to be was a pa. 

 

‘Course, he’d never expected to love no woman an’ want to keep her, either. And he wasn’t too upset about that happenin’. Or at least he wouldn’t be if River would quit bein’ so gorram skitty about it.

 

Another thought that pulled him up short, just for a minute, was that he sure didn’t want River choosing to hook up just because she wanted help with the kid.  But he discarded that fear soon enough; gorgeous woman like her could get better than him for a parenting partner, he reasoned, so prob’ly he shouldn’t be worryin’ about that.

 

He was startin’ to confuse himself, and he wanted to see River.  He wanted to see her, and so he went looking. Later he thought maybe deciding to do that right after a game, without stopping to clean up or stow the ball, was another bad idea. It likely didn’t help his case, anyway.

 

She was in the galley alone, bent over a drawer; he stopped to take in the view.  He knew when she knew he was there because she straightened, closed the drawer, and made for the door. He grabbed her arm and didn’t let her go.

 

“You gotta stop runnin’ sometime,” he said quiet as he knew how. He hoped she could tell just how childish he thought she was being. River stalled, even quit trying to get away from him, and he turned her loose because he wanted to hold a damn sight more than just her arm.

 

“Why you doin’ it, all this running?” he demanded. She gave him a look like he was the dumbest creature ever.

 

“Hey, I’m not stupid,” he objected. She was really starting to get him pissed. 

 

She tilted her head back and her hair brushed her in places he wanted to touch. He took another step back, to avoid temptation, and clenched his hands around the ball he held. He needed to concentrate.

 

“No, you’re not stupid, Jayne. Stupid is not learning from mistakes. Stupid is never changing your point of view for any reason.” She fell quiet, thinking something through. He didn’t speak, couldn’t interrupt. She only had three more words, though.

 

“But I’m broken.”

 

When it seemed that was all she had to say, he did talk, loud and annoyed.

 

 “You think you’re the only one? Ain’t nobody on this boat whole! Mal’s lost his faith. Inara lost her identity. Kaylee can’t keep neither her sunshineyness nor her pains private, and Zoë is stoic so she don’t have to cry.” The words came fast and furious, and River stared at him, eyes very round.

 

 “And you?” Her voice was a breath, sharp contrast to his harshness.

 

 “Me … well …” His cheek muscles scrunched, and he tried to shove aside his anger because he had to make her understand. He bent his knees experimentally a few times, to remind himself his body was still there amidst all the thinkin’ he was doing.

 

“I’m a survivalist first an’ foremost.”

 

River nodded. “It’s a good way to be.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Jayne snorted, “The best. You can see all it’s brought me. Sometimes … I think I’ve missed some other things, bein’ that way. Not that I’d change it!” He added hastily. “Just that – it’s maybe not the best way. For everyone. For family people.”

 

His fingers flexed on the ball he held against his hip.  He glanced down at it, gave it a few bounces, and wanted to lighten the atmosphere. Dumpin' all his anger on her weren't gonna help none. “I’m not sayin’ I’m, what, afraid of commitment. Don’t you see this lovely committed wife I got? Only woman I’ve been with in the last 10 … 20 years. Mr. One-Clean-an-Married-t’-Me-Woman Man, that’s me.” He risked a glance down at her.

 

She was staring up at him like he was the crazy one. Well, that was better than the staring-down-Vera’s-barrel look. So he went ahead and ran with the nonsense.

 

“And surely you’ve noticed these fine five kids’v mine I’ve  _committed_  to raisin’?” He quirked an eyebrow and threw an arm out around at the empty galley. River punched his arm. He lurched back a step from the force of it.

 

“Yeah,” he nodded, able to grin now, rubbing an area that’d be bruised come morning, “mighty fine kids. Learned all their manners from me. Littlest girl, uh, Lucinda, she holds her pinky out all fine ‘n dainty when she uses her chopsticks.” River’s eyes were narrowed. She was biting her lip, prob’ly to keep from telling him that wasn’t how chopsticks should be held. He let the ball drop again and started to dribble it. He was on a roll.

 

“My eldest boy, he can cross his legs right above the knees just’s if he’s got no man parts at all. Learned that from his uncle.”

 

Now he heard what sounded suspiciously like a smothered chortle. He bounced the ball harder. “Got another, he growed up to be a doctor, top  _one_  percent, y’ know. I was able t’ put him through school because I’m _committed_ to this here secure ‘n upright job. Our middle girl, she lives up on a hill all fancy. She invites her ma ‘n me over for dinner with fine linens ‘n candles ‘n silver, an’ we go, because a  _committed_  man does that for his family.” He risked lookin’ at her again, hoping to share laughter. Instead he met such deep yielding softness that now it was his heart that took a punch and lurched about in his chest. 

 

She took a step in real close and leaned her neck back, face up toward his. He was tight and hard with want instantly, he was that wound.  And he had to fight it because she looked all caught up in a dream web of some kind; one he'd spun.

 

“And the littlest one,” she breathed, her eyes half-shuttered, “he has eyes like the deep and a smile like the sun and his mama can’t ever refuse him anything when he asks her with pleading because he’s so much like his papa.”

 

Jayne let the ball drop quiet beside him and roll away. His breath left his lips slowly. He lifted a hand toward her, then stayed it, not wanting to scare her into not-closeness. 

 

“Won’t ever happen. I don’t plan to have kids. Not … you know, genetically.” He swallowed, hoping that dose of reality didn’t scare her away either. “But there could maybe be one girl.” His voice had somehow become a hoarse whisper. “One girl who don’t look like neither one of her parents, but she’s good and true with sweet black eyes and crazy-ass hair an’ her mama’s don’t-mess-with-me attitude, that her papa hopes she never loses.”

 

River’s eyelids had drifted down. “It’s a good dream,” she murmured to Jayne’s chest. “So much hope …”

 

“It’s a right dream. It could be more.”

 

‘I don’t …” Her eyes reappeared. There was intense uncertainty there. Jayne sighed, and took a slow step back.  This kept up, she was gonna drive him to the looney bin without no pitstops.

 

“I want the reality,” River told him brokenly. She turned, swift and sudden, and flit bird-like down the corridor and then up into the reaches of the catwalk, seating herself with legs hanging down, crossed at the ankles. He followed, leaving the ball behind, knowing if she truly wanted away from him she’d have gone until he couldn’t get to her.

 

They sat poised an endless moment, she anxious grace, he awkward calm. But he couldn’t keep that pose forever.

 

“Well, then? What’s the problem?” He tried to say it gentle, but he was so damn  _frustrated,_ and in pain if’n he was honest. “If it’s not our ages, our backgrounds, our interests, our plans, our frie- fami- our people – and I know them ain’t it -- why won’t you just go for it?”

 

River’s throat moved as she swallowed. She was fronted out toward the cargo bay, not even sparing him those glances from her eye corners like he’d learned to look for. And while he looked, her head tilted forward, all that hair she’d never cut hanging so that even her profile was hid from him. Jayne sighed, and braced his hands to lever himself up off the catwalk. But then she spoke after all, soft and low.

 

“You put your eyes on me and I spark. If you lay on hands … I’m fire, Jayne. With anyone else, I would be in control. But with you”- she stopped.

 

Jayne was a statue, frozen into the fall of her hair and the shake of her voice. He didn’t speak, for fear she wouldn’t. And he  _needed_ to hear her admit out loud that he did to her what she did to him.

 

She started again, head lower than before. “Someone calm and bland, I will survive. He would survive. With you, the feelings … amygdalla … I’m not equipped to handle a one true love. I would be consumed. There would be destruction. You would hurt.”

 

_I hurt right now_ , he thought, and the thought brought back all his resentment at what she was doing to him. But there had also been, what had she said?

 

_One true love_.  Belatedly, he caught it, and caught his breath. His heart snagged on that phrase and wouldn’t let it go.

 

Suddenly River’s head turned and her eyes impaled him. “Don’t you understand?”

 

Well, she’d asked. So he frank told her.

 

“No.” Except for the part about burnin’ – he understood that right well.  It had been happening to him for months. 

 

There was wet desperation glazing River's bearing. “We would be all,” she moaned. “And then we would be nothing.”

 

Jayne’s throat was tight as he tried to work that out. He had to convince her, now while she was willing to talk about it, but how could he when he couldn’t even understand the problem? Couldn’t she see that what was in the pot was worth the gamble, here?

 

Oh.

 

“You don’t think I’m worth the risk.” His voice was flat and quiet. That amount of pain couldn’t be expressed. He levered his elbows out straight and this time he did get to his feet. 

 

Jayne’s prismed form receded away down the stairs while River widened her eyes against the pools they held.  _That’s not what I meant!_ She cried after him mentally, but didn’t call him back. She knew he wouldn’t come. And she wasn’t sure any more what she did mean. She just knew she was frightened, of losing herself, and ultimately of losing Jayne.

 

_What are you doing right now?_  It was a question from her own brain, to herself, and she had no answer. For she already felt lost. And she really didn’t think she had Jayne, at all.


	13. The Truest Thing, Pt 1

Jayne was out of bed with a pistol in his hand before he knew he was awake. A long, high, agonized scream was ripping his ears to shreds as he clambered out of his bunk and quick-footed it down the hall. He knew the source; recognized it just the same as everyone else who was pokin’ their noses out of their beds. 

 

Simon was there first, his and Kaylee’s bunk bein’ closer. He’d brought his own weapons, a medication vial with a syringe. But he hadn’t ventured too close with it, yet. He was tryin’ to talk River down first, for which Jayne had to give him credit. 

 

As he dropped down through the hatch Simon had left open, Jayne heard another sound; a whimper. It came from Darwhen, who was backed into a corner, her eyes wide with fright as she listened to River shrill.  He’d never heard the kid do that before, and he hoped her time with the _hun dan_ Yarborough hadn’t broken her permanent-like.

 

 

When the girl saw Jayne come through into the room, she pulled herself to her feet and crossed to him. After checking that the safety was on, Jayne tucked his gun into his waistband while Darwhen’s hand anchored to his pants. Good thing he’d worn them to bed last night. 

 

River was braced up against the wall, her eyes shut tight, _still_ hollering. It must’ve been a bad one; she hadn’t gone off like this in a long time. Darwhen was leaning on his leg, trembling. Jayne went to take a step toward River and the kid came along a little slow, dragging at his leg. Without thinking, he reached down, got an arm around her, and hauled her up onto his hip against his side. She melted into his shoulder with a little shudder.

 

Simon had given up trying to calm his sister verbally and was sticking the syringe’s needle into the vial. Jayne sighed, leaned over his crazy partner, and slammed his open palm up against the hull right beside her head. The loud _smack_ sound resounded through the room; Simon jerked and muttered a half-audible curse. 

 

“Jayne, that’s a good way to get me needle-stuck,” Simon glared. Jayne cared about discommoding the doc about as much as he ever did. 

 

River had jerked too; more importantly, her eyes had opened and she’d quit screaming. 

 

Simon injected the liquid back into the vial when it was obvious that his sister was staring around the room with a semblance of rationality in her posture. River tracked on the two male faces and, finally, the small scared one peeping at her from the one eye not pressed to Jayne’s frame. River’s eyes glazed with tears at the sight.

 

“I dreamed your fear,” she whispered to the child. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry … I’m so sorry he did that to you …”

 

“Scoot over,” Jayne commanded, shoving at River’s leg with his foot. Blinking, she did so, and he sat down close beside her. Simon cocked his head as he watched Darwhen curl into the merc’s lap. The girl’s eyes were wide and she was shivering a little. Jayne rubbed his hands briskly up and down her arms, though Simon thought the tremors were likely more of a fight-or-flight reaction than a coolness of body temperature.

 

“I’m sorry,” Darwhen said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. 

 

“For what?” Jayne demanded, tipping a frown down at her.

 

“I made River scared. I gave her a nightmare ... I was dreaming about Mr. Y-yarb...”

 

“Stop right there,” Jayne cut her off while River sat forward with a horrified gasp. “Not your fault, River pickin’ up your dreams. And that _hun dan_ was a mean an’ scary piece of _go se_ , an’ if you weren’t scared and still thinkin’ on what happened we’d be, uh, worried. Well, River would.”

 

River’s foot nudged his knee. “Language, Jayne,” she chided softly. Her expression was even clearer than it had been. Jayne rolled his eyes at her admonition, but Simon knew he’d been taking pains about how he spoke when Darwhen stayed with them the last time; everyone had. They just needed to get into practice again.

 

“Jayne is right,” River directed her speech to Darwhen now. “You had some bad things happen.   We wish they hadn't, but since they did you are right to be scared. Just like you’re right to be sad and miss your mother.”

 

Darwhen kicked her feet against each other. “I’m not all the time,” she said. “Just sometimes, still sad. Mostly I was scared, at Mr. Yarb- Yarbro’s house.” Her expression turned fierce. “He said call him ‘Daddy’ and I didn’t want to ...” She leaned sideways into Jayne’s chest again. “I’m never gonna call him anything but ‘Mr. Yarbro’ now. Even though it’s hard to say.”

 

 River managed a smile at Darwhen, who smiled back. Then the child giggled as she stuck her feet over into River’s lap.

 

“Thanks, doc,” Jayne said quietly just when Simon was ready to assume they’d forgotten he was even in the room. “Think we’ll be OK here.”

 

 They all looked settled in for the long haul, the man, the woman, and the child. It was Simon who blinked now. Lips pursed, he took his syringe and the unused med, and exited quietly.

 

He was still standing in the hall outside his sister’s bunk when Kaylee came to check on them a few minutes later. She slid her hand into his unoccupied one, a wordless question. He smiled down into her sleepy eyes. His wife standing there in drawstring pants and an old shirt of his with the sleeves ripped out; the most beautiful person he knew.

 

“She’s fine,” he answered her. “I think – I think they’re all going to be fine.” 

 

\-------

In River’s bunk, the verdict wasn’t so certain. River stroked a hand over the top of the small foot in her lap. Jayne just sat and looked at her like that for a moment. She was beautiful, and it was in a way unlike any other woman. He guessed that some of that ethereal, other-worldliness stemmed from the remains of her craziness.

 

And he decided maybe he didn’t want her normal. 

 

“Don’t want you normal. Wouldn’t be you, if you were, ‘n I love you.” He just went right ahead and said it aloud, to her profile. He blinked after it was out, surprised with himself, then shrugged. He adjusted Darwhen uncomfortably and twitched the thigh that was laid against River’s.

 

River didn’t move, didn’t look at him. He was done talkin’ for the moment, and thought what he had said should be enough for any woman.

 

“Jayne ...” his name on her tongue was just a breath, a little broken, a benediction and a plea. Her eyes sparkled with tears when she did finally face him fully. He frowned at them. Not what he was hopin’ for. He was getting’ mighty tired of this.

 

“What should I do about this, though?” River asked him with just a little hitch behind her voice. She spared a glance for the child who was, apparently, uppermost on her mind, but Darwhen’s eyes were closed and her breaths even. “Darwhen needs a mother. I – I love her. I can be a good mother to her. Except …”

  
“Except when you can’t”, he finished for her. She sighed and let her head fall back against the wall.

 

“Except when I can’t,” she nodded. “Except in crowds, if the touch of many strangers and their thoughts tear down my bricks. Except at night, if I have a dream and wake up screaming and needing an anchor. Except in the day, if I have a flashback and can’t recover on my own. Except for the times when I’m not balanced, not rational, and can’t take care of myself, much less a child.”

 

Jayne was shaking his head. She didn’t give him a chance to speak, though.

 

“I don’t know why I ever thought I could do this,” Her lids drifted shut. Jayne ventured yet nearer, just wanting closeness, while her voice dropped to a whisper. “Bitter little taunts, the dances of hopes and dreams …”

 

Jayne shifted legs that were startin’ to go numb under Darwhen’s weight. He didn’t really know what to say, but he talked anyhow.

 

“Simon says you could do it with help.” So, it wasn’t exactly what Simon had said, but it had been in there. He adjusted Darwhen’s head. Kid breathed kinda heavy when she was asleep. He wondered why he’d never noticed that before.

 

River giggled, and the sound had that eerie softness that meant she wasn’t tracking on all counts. Jayne hurried on.

 

“If you had that anchor you’re talkin’ about, you could do it. You need a …” his voice trailed off for a minute, scared away by what it carried. This wasn’t their little pretend scenario with five children from earlier in the day. This was open and honest and gave him nothing to hide behind, but he shook his head and finished it; Simon had said it, months ago. “A ‘long-term commitment from another person.’” 

 

River’s head dropped and rolled toward him. She’d re-opened her eyes and he had to turn his toward the opposite wall. She didn’t speak. He swallowed.

 

“If you had that – commitment – would you take it?” 

 

She still made no sound. He angled himself toward her and punched the side of her leg. Then he left his hand there, thrilled when she didn’t jerk away.

 

“Need an answer.” He squeezed her thigh lightly.

 

“I’m not certain what the question is.”

 

“Yes, you are.”

River moved her feet to the floor and stood, turning to face Jayne. He looked up as she bent forward, curved in towards him. Hearts pounded a fast, unsyncopated rhythm. He was putting it out there, and she was listening. Not running.

 

“For clarification. Who would offer this long-term commitment and what would those terms be?”  If he’d been a few more feet away, he wouldn’t have heard her, she spoke so low.

 

“I don’t know the terms, exactly," He tried to clear the gruffness from his own voice. “And you know that I would be offerin’ … but I have to know. If you had that option, wouldja take it?”

 

She leaned back again, straightening her spine. “I don’t know.” 

 

Anger flashed through him, quick and fierce.

 

“Is that because I’m dumb and you’re crazy?”

 

“Not - entirely.” 

 

River couldn’t see his face again; it was so sincere yet guarded. She was struggling with awe at what he tendered, and yearning to be truthful with him because he deserved that. It was the best way she had to show her respect for him. 

 

“I’m smart and you’re sane. We balance.” Though she knew it wasn’t entirely true. She wasn’t just crazy. Some days she was very sane. And he wasn’t just dumb; some days he was really smart. Quite incredibly intelligent. So what was the truth?

 

“I’m scared.” For truth, it was a simple, ugly one. A paltry thing to offer in the face of what he’d asked her. She tried to do better. “I can’t – I’ve never had fullness of joy. I don’t want to believe in it, it’s too – big, too far outside my realm. Grabbing for it, I’d fall. Falling, I’d break. Again. And Simon and men and horses couldn’t put me together again. Not again.” Her voice was rising. “I’d lose control, I’d break, and you’d be cut on the shards of what was left of me. I can’t do that to us.”

 

It seemed she was done. Jayne couldn’t do much with Darwhen layin’ on him, so he stood up, tucked her into bed, and then faced the woman he loved. He stood close, near enough that she felt it and leaned into it. She wanted it. And he refused. He denied her himself. She might as well have a taste of wanting and not having. He’d had to do it all these months. 

 

Besides, there were things needed sayin’, never had been his strong suit, and he had to give it all his attention. He’d never expected to love any woman but his ma, but since it had happened, he was gonna do it right.

 

“Your brain may not always be so worthy of trust, River, but your heart’s as true as truth’s possible. Think Book’d say that’s the worthier part. And waddaya mean I’d get hurt? ‘spect that’s what happens in most relationships. Don’t mean I’d be destroyed. I got strength, and I know you, River-woman. I can take all you got and more.”

 

She clenched her eyelids together, spreading brief wrinkles about her nose and temples. One hand reached out to him, and he was about to step into her, but she stepped instead to the hatch, head down, and then left her own bunk with him in it.

 

He watched her exit up the ladder, tried to get control of his gritting teeth, wanting desperately to punch something. Something satisfyingly sturdy that would hurt and be loud, but it would also wake Darwhen and he didn’t want that to happen. So he just checked she was well-covered with the blanket and then followed River out the door. He wasn’t lettin’ her get away with this no more. It had to be decided, one way or the other.


	14. The Truest Thing, Part 2

Behind Jayne in the bunk, Darwhen frowned in annoyance. Pretending to sleep had been working like it always did and she’d learned lots. River wanted to keep her. Jayne wanted to help. She really liked that a lot.

 

But now pretending to be asleep meant she’d got left behind. She threw the covers off and moved to try quietly opening the hatch. It was kinda heavy but she managed it; just not as quiet as she hoped.

 

It appeared that didn’t matter, cuz River and Jayne didn’t notice her. Neither did Simon or Kaylee. And now Inara was looking out, and asking what was going on. Darwhen giggled, the first time she’d felt like it since Serenity had dropped her off at that place it didn’t feel good to remember. Captain Mal would be out pretty quick too, she bet.

 

For his part, Jayne had halted in the hallway. Simon had gotten to River before he could. 

Maybe just too tired to fight another person, River was talking. They started walking and Jayne followed while Simon dragged the story out of her.

 

 “I don’t understand,” he said at the end of it. They were in the cargo bay. “The three of you, you function so well ... just now, I thought ...”

 

River grit her teeth. “I don’t understand either, Simon. But he’s ... he’s everything. I don’t know if I can handle that.”

 

Her brother stared at her then shook his head. “I never did take you for a coward, but it seems I was wrong.” Kaylee murmured wordlessly and laid a hand on his arm. The cargo bay lights flickered to full strength, turned on by Mal. Zoë and Inara were behind him, and all were unashamedly eavesdropping.

 

River straightened her back. A coward? Jayne knew that word had to sit kinda hard with her. Coming up from behind them, he must have made some small noise, and River turned. He could see how surprised she was as she watched him approach. She’d been so focused on her conversation that, for likely the first time in years, she hadn’t known Jayne was there.

 

“We’re in perfect agreement there, doc,” Jayne said to her brother. “River, I know you’re scared of losin’ our, uh, our friendship.” If this was how it had to be, with the whole crew listenin’ in, then so be it. “But things are what they are. We can’t go back to what was. And I think, maybe, we could have the old friend-ness, just have it  _too_. Have _more_  than that”. He shoved his fingers through his hair, and then laid it all out on the table. “I think it’s all or nothin’, River. Can’t have half of me. You either want me or you don’t”.

 

River only stood wordless, looking stunned at the ultimatum. She stared at him for what seemed a very long time. He waited. But she didn’t talk.

 

“Guess that’s a ‘don’t’” he muttered finally, and suddenly, he had to quit. He let her go, in his head, and the hurt inside was someway numbed, only a dull ache. Somehow he got his legs moving again, and he brushed past the siblings. He was done. He was just ... done.

 

“Think I’ll go find me some trim. See ya later.” Jayne walked away.

 

Simon made a wordless pained sound that River only half-heard. Jayne hit the button to open the ramp and then went down it. It was darkish out, but farther off, there were town lights. Watching Jayne go pounded a spike of pain into the apprehension through which River had heard his words. She didn’t want him to leave and she didn’t know how to be if he stayed.

 

But not only didn’t she want him to go, she really didn’t think she could take it if he left. Not if he was finding trim. And he’d meant that. She’d felt it through the battered mental walls she’d been struggling to pull back up.

 

She just couldn’t have that. That wasn’t an acceptable choice. So maybe ... her choices weren’t to be in control or not to be. They were to have Jayne or not have him. She loved him, that was already out of her hands. And really, how could she not? With Jayne, blankets were weapons cases and a Callahan full-bore automatic was a teddy bear. She didn’t know anyone else like that. He was so much of the rightness in her ‘verse.

 

He was gone from sight now; her good thing, possibly the Best Thing that was to happen to her. She knew the opinions some people had of him, but just because his tenderness was rough and his affection awkward didn’t mean they were any less precious. In fact, at some point along the way, they’d become all the more endearing for it. It was more work for him than for others, to be caring, and so caring from him meant more. Was she really going to let that pass her by? Wouldn’t she always be sorry? 

 

She knew, suddenly, that of all her regrets that one would be the worst. Fear for the future clenched her. 

 

And in that fear, she found her strength. She picked her skirt up and darted past a startled Simon, down the ramp, out into the dark and dust. Jayne heard the soft padding of her bare feet and slowed, turned, came back towards her. Serenity’s light gave down the ramp and she could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t want to hope. But he did, anyway, at the sight of her. She saw it flare up in his face, the fragility of it clutching at her being and sending a shiver down her back.

 

“I can’t,” she said, coming up near to him and stopping, and it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He felt that last malicious shred of hope fade; his face closed and he swung away, shoulders set. Not toward town; toward Serenity, her hull. He couldn’t really see well enough to walk right now.

 

 

He knew she was back there but she didn’t say anything. He couldn’t get himself to turn around, so he just stood there staring at the metal wall and feeling all kinds of sorrowful and stupid. And seething – he’d laid it out in the open, all his heart and soul; he’d never done that for anyone before. And she’d, she’d ...

 

He knew when she started to move, he heard the whisper of her dress against the skin of her legs. But he wasn’t prepared for two small hands touching, ever so tentative, at his back. He jerked in surprise and they were gone. But when he neglected to run, or speak, or even breath, they returned, so soft it was only fabric her fingers depressed. A few sketchy hesitant moves, the fingers fluttering as if they didn’t understand what to do; then she spread them out and laid her palms fully against him. That was all, for a moment, while he choked on pure air and clenched his eyes closed against that hope he’d thought finally dead, that wasn’t. She just stood there behind him, touching him, almost weighing him. Judging, deciding. He thought it was a decision more about her than about him.

 

Jayne’s eyes opened again when she made her choice. Her hands telegraphed the verdict to him as they smoothed down below his shoulders, along the length of his spine, then forward around his rib cage and under his elbows. Where her hands went so went fire, and he felt the warmth of her as she stepped in to his body. Her arms wrapped around, folding him into hot delight, while she laid her cheek between his shoulder blades and her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, and his heart. 

 

He stared down at her touching him,  _holding_ him, at the pale skin of her arms and the crumpling folds of his shirt and the rest of his life. Maybe he could have it, he thought torpidly, as he raised his own arm and enveloped both her hands with one of his. Maybe he could have the not-aloneness. Maybe he could have private glances and shared hurts and us-only jokes, and someone by his side at the end of his allotted time who remembered the same years that he did. Maybe he could even treasure all that, if River was the one he had it with.

 

And maybe he wasn’t such an idiot, after all, if he was smart enough to grab for this, with her. Jayne moved his feet, shuffled them really, in a circle till he was facing her and her arms clasped his back. The closeness of her was a marvel. 

 

“I meant,” River started to talk, low so he bent to hear her, “I can’t be without you. If I have Darwhen or if I don’t ... I need you. With you, I might break. Without you ... I surely will.” She was murmuring, not meeting his eyes. “I want all of you. As much of you as I can get, anyway. And you’re right.   You’re strong enough ... you could take me. A lifetime with me.” Her face scrunched as she struggled for words that weren’t coming easily or in ways that pleased her.

 

He had no words in his head, either, there was just relief pounding through him. She was halting and uncertain, and he thought she deserved a bit of that, for what she’d put him through. But then she got the nerve to lift her head and look at him straight on, and that small bitterness faded like she’d dumped real sugar over him.

 

“I was stupid,” she concluded, and sighed slow, as if she was letting go a heavy load.

 

“Yeah,” he agreed. And he bent down far enough and kissed her. Unexpected, it was, because of the sweetness and the slowness of it. And she didn’t fight it, didn’t try; nor did she tumble half-unwillingly into a well of lust. Instead she partook, partook joyfully of what he gave, rising on tiptoe and when that wasn’t enough just climbing up him. She had no real sense of anything but his strength full against her, his heat and hardness there for her to touch as much as she wanted and her own body singing with the feel of his hands on her. Her smallness was lost amid his greatness, but it was a kind of lost where she thought she might have been found. His arms were around her hips, supporting her, and hers were about his muscled shoulders. She was the first to deepen the contact, the first to open her mouth, and the one who pressed herself so hard up against him that finally he pulled his mouth free to laugh.

 

“Should’ve known once you made up your mind you’d try to take over,” he muttered, clenching his fingers around the curve of her backside. She just sighed, not to be distracted, and occupied her lips with the side of his neck. She was finding honesty, finding acceptance and certainty. Certainty that wasn’t about what the future held, but about how they would face whatever that was; together and with courage.

 

Darwhen had giggled when she sneaked her head around the frame of the open door and saw Jayne and River down on the ground in the half-dark, ‘playing kissy-face’ like her mama would have called it. She turned around and saw that everyone else was watching too; Inara had tucked her head into Captain Mal’s shoulder, and she had that happy soft look. Kaylee’s hands were folded and she was cooing. Even Zoë had a little smile, if you looked close.

 

“Dr. Simon, are they gonna stay that way all night?” Darwhen moved to the man’s side, and when he reached a hand down to rest it on her shoulder she didn’t really mind.

 

“I expect,” he told her, “that if you want to you might call me ‘Uncle Simon’, now.”

 

“Girl’s got a point,” Mal said, separating himself from Inara to walk to the top of the ramp. He raised his voice to reach the entwined lovers.

“Not that we’re not all mighty entertained by this exhibition of physicality, but some of us would like to sleep sometime tonight. Which we can’t do with the ramp down. Either get yourselves back in here or go get a room there.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the town where they had business tomorrow.

 

His words penetrated the haze of desire enough for River to pull back. She saw Jayne cast a glance up the ramp into Serenity’s welcoming glow, and then turn that gaze on the distant lights of the town a few miles away.

 

“Too far,” she murmured. 

 

“Got that right,” he returned, swiveling them both so they could board. “I’ve waited long enough. My bunk it is.”

 

He had to pause inside the cargo bay, though, for they were greeted there by a glowing little girl who looked half-afraid to smile.

 

“Dr. Simon says I can call him Uncle, now,” she informed River, her hands on her hips as she tipped her head back to look up. “He says I should ask you why.”

 

River knelt to her height, slipping away from Jayne’s arm to do it. Jayne glared at the doctor for a second, not happy about this delay on his sexin’ plans. Simon shrugged, and grinned.

 

“Should ask her first,” Jayne said down at River. “Be sure this is somethin’ she wants, before we go makin’ firm plans for her.”

 

River wrapped her arm around his leg to have a part of him to hug, while she addressed Darwhen’s question.

 

“Jayne and I have been talking,” she said.

 

“That what that was?” Mal wanted to know from the side. “All these years, I never knew all that touching was needed for a conversation to occur. So that’s what’s gone wrong on all my dealings with Badger -- I need to be kissin’ on him more.”

 

"'More'?” Inara inserted with warm amusement. "You kissing Badger at all - that’s a story I’d like to hear.”

Kaylee giggled while she snuggled into her husband’s side. Zoë’s eyebrow was up, and despite her captain’s previous statement she evidenced no more interest than anyone else did in going to bed. Darwhen rolled her eyes and crossed her arms and somehow looked absurdly like a mini-Jayne.

 

“Can’t get any privacy,” Jayne groused. “Think people’d respect an important occasion like this.”

 

“I think you’ve got the wrong crowd for that,” Simon told him, smiling. Kaylee nodded brightly.

 

Jayne snorted and crouched down by River. Darwhen was looking mighty impatient to hear what was what, and he didn’t blame her. He was wantin’ to get on with certain things, too.

 

“Look,” he said to her, “River and I are gonna – uh – get married?” He turned to River with a question on his face. They hadn’t actually discussed makin’ anything formal-like.

 

River returned his look wide-eyed, and swallowed. “I hadn’t considered. Would you – is that”- she wrinkled her nose and shook her head; this new inability to say what she meant was truly irritating her. Even Zoë was laughing now, in the background, while Darwhen’s face was becoming more and more annoyed. And Jayne bet that River was tired of dithering over decisions.

 

“Yes, Jayne, I would be pleased to marry you.” River said it firmly and loudly and the sound silenced all others, for an instant.

 

He’d been right. Jayne nodded, satisfied that it was settled. “All right, then.” 

 

River grinned rather foolishly, looking up into his face, and an answering one sneaked out and settled on Jayne’s lips. Their moment of mushiness was interrupted by an exasperated sigh.

 

“Will you  _tell_  me what Doctor – Uncle Simon meant? Or do I gotta guess?”

 

“We’ll tell you,” Jayne rushed to answer before River could. “We’re gettin’ married, and we wanted to ask, if you’d want to – uh ...” he couldn’t quite say it, and he looked to River for help.

 

“We would like you to be part of our family,” she supplied, solemn anticipation in her quiet tone. “You would stay here, on Serenity, and this would be your home. I don’t mean to take the place of your mama. You could keep calling us ‘River’ and ‘Jayne’, if that’s what you’re comfortable with. But we would... We’d be your parents. Adopted parents.” Her breath rushed out between pursed lips, once she’d gotten it out. And now she waited with what looked like a hope she wasn’t sure she could trust.

 

Darwhen wasn’t speaking, just standing there big-eyed. Maybe, Jayne thought, they’d made a big mistake.

 

“You don’t gotta decide right now,” He said to Darwhen, tightening his hand on River’s slim shoulder to maybe help brace her against disappointment. “Take a bit to think on it. Let us know what you decide.”

 

He was tensed to stand when Darwhen spoke to River, consideringly. 

 

“You would be my mama number 2.”

 

“That’ll be a bit of a mouthful,” Mal muttered. Jayne supposed the captain had kept quiet as long as he possibly could. The mercenary shot another baleful glare around at the still unrepentantly present crew.

 

“If you like," River answered Darwhen. Darwhen nodded.

 

“That would be good,” she allowed, and River’s face eased back into a joy-filled smile. Darwhen turned her serious gaze to Jayne.

 

“I’m comf’ble callin’ you papa.” She said it hesitantly, as though afraid he wouldn’t care for the idea. 

 

Jayne didn’t, himself, actually feel entirely comfortable; he rolled his shoulders around and looked from the floor to the ceiling. But then he shrugged. “Guess that’d be okay,” he allowed. And let himself catch the kid’s gaze out of the corner of his, and even return her smile a little.

 

“And I can stay here,” Darwhen wanted to double-check. Inara stepped forward.

 

“You’d stay here until you were grown up,” she said gently.   “Once you decide this, you can’t change your mind later. Be sure.”

 

“That’s a bit much to put on a six-year-old’s shoulders, doncha think?” Kaylee wanted to know. Simon nodded, but Inara shook her head.

 

“She’s makin’ a choice. She needs to know what she’s doin’,” Mal put in. He looked down at Darwhen seriously. “Once you’re in a family, you’re in. That’s it. No backin’ out, _dong ma_?”

 

Darwhen nodded, eyes big and grave. But then she reached without warning to clasp her hands about River’s neck. “I wanta be here with you. I don’t wanta go away.”

 

River held her close and stood, Jayne at her side. And finally the nosey crew began to trickle back to their beds. Going themselves, the new family unit held as close as they could while still allowing for movement. Jayne grumbled the entire way about how gorram patient he was being. 

 

But he had yet more waiting to do, because Darwhen was too wide-awake and excited to go to sleep, even though it was well past midnight by now. So first there was a need for a drink of water. Then a demand for a story after Jayne tucked her in, which River met (though Jayne was pretty sure the one she told was made-up). Then another drink was called for, and of course after that the toilet was necessary. Jayne’s jaw was clenched by the time the little girl’s eyes closed and the two adults were able to slink out of River’s bunk and into Jayne’s.

 

 “It gonna be like that every night?” he wanted to know as he dropped to sit on his bunk. He reached and pulled River to stand between his thighs.

 

“I don’t know,” she returned, cradling the back of his head between her hands. She smoothed at his hair. “I expect we will need to become better disciplinarians.”

 

He growled, pulling her in further and toppling them back so she lay atop him. “We can think about that tomorrow,” he rumbled. “Right now we got better things to do”.

 

River agreed.


End file.
